what are advantages of an external DAC with an amp with a built in dac

[denise1111]

I am thinking of buying Marantz Pm 6005 Integrated Amp with DAC on board. Also a Marantz 6005 CD player. I also want to be able to store CDs digitally on laptop and play them from there and have other downloadd music to play. I want to use lossless format.

Would there be any advantage to the sound to also get an external DAC eg Cambridge dac 100. I am not sure how to connect computer to amp. computer does not have toslink port and I am told rca not very good. I understand there is an adapter eg usb to toslink which can be used. Have also heard that the sound will need converting from digital to audio before getting to the amp. Would most appreciate input from others who know about things.

 

[americanaudiophile]

The Marantz is a decent integrated amp but doesn't have a USB DAC.
USB is generally the best way to get digital audio from a computer and allows playback of higher than CD quality digital files. Any computer will work.
I would suggest you get the Cambridge CXA80 integrated amp.
https/www.cambridgeaudio.com/products/cx/cxa80
It has USB, coax and toslink inputs. A bit more expensive but worth it. Since you want to store all your CDs on your laptop anyway why buy a CD player at all? Use that cash towards the CXA80. If you did need a way to spin a CD you would use your laptop or get a cheap DVD player with digital output.
If you did have an intergrated amp without a DAC built in you could use the Cambridge DAC100 that a USB input. The DAC does the conversion of digital to analog so it can be amplified and power your headphones or speakers.
For playback software you can use freeware such as Foobar2000 or the free version of Mediamonkey. JRiver Media Center is also used by many people but is not free. JRiver & Mediamonkey can also be used for CD ripping. Many people like DbPoweramp or EAC for CD ripping. Make sure you set the quality to 16 bit 44.1khz. On PCs FLAC is the most popular file type,