$150 Transport anyone?

Sean: Thanks for the feedback and letting us know what you based your comments on. Nobody can argue with first hand experience, especially if it happens to be your own : ) My experience is just the opposite of yours. My brother has also run into the same situation. Upon finding this out, i talked to two local "techs" at different repair facilities. They both told me that they see more Philips in for repair and that the Sony is more "forgiving" in terms of working under less than optimum conditions.

Now you know what i've based my comments on : )

Orbeck: I'm also quite interested in this and will drop you an email shortly. Sean
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The Transport! only exists because of a coincidence that a particular computer CD-ROM drive has both a digital output and stand alone operability. I have seen the drive being used for this purpose before but it was at an audio dealers home and I dont remember who made the CD player that employed this same drive. It literally is a CD-Rom drive If you were so inclined you could take it out of the casing and pop it into your desktop computer and use it to read CDs. The drive is not available for sale in the USA unless it is in OEM form so you cant just go the local comp USA and buy one. Obviously if the drive was garbage it wouldnt have been used by another company in their CD player which had an internal DAC with Analog outputs. Theirs also had a flip down wooden faceplate that revealed the drive. It was very cool but it was still the same drive which means that that $1000+ cd player is based on the same mechanism that my $150 unit is. So when used with an excellent DAC my Transport! has the possiblity of performing very nicely. Note that the Unit I saw lacked a display also so I am pretty sure that a display is not possible. Realistically a display is a luxury that is not needed. Cassettes have timers but they correspond to nothing so they are totally ambiguous and Records dont have track numbers either. The Transport! is as basic as possible without sacrificing functionality. It will play CDs CDRWs and CD-Rs as long as the info on them is Redbook spec. This unit is a shortcut to superb sound just add a 2nd hand DAC and you've got a serious CD player. That is what I made it for. If you are on a budget but want the expensive sound this is an option that might be ideal. I will also make the unit in black upon request.

You say it does not have a display and you think it may not need one, but what about a way to locate tracks? What about at least an audible fast forward? These units would have to potential of getting tiring to use without at least one of these features. No offense to your logic, but a cassette or R2R timer/counter means a great deal once you have run that tape, either in record or play, on that machine, I can look at a # and know where the music I want to hear is on that tape. LP's has grooves I can find and set my stylus down on. Not to say there's not a market for what you have, but if you have a product that is not easy to use the way people tend to use them. or has a certain attractiveness about it, they fade rather quickly.

Jvia

It does have an audable fast forward and rewind feature. I agree that the lack of a display sucks and if I could give it a display I would but I am pretty sure that the IDE interface on the drive would require a desktop computer to interpert what track number is currently being played. Short of the display it really is a fully functional Transport. For $150 its not a bad deal and for $100 in kit form you cant beat it. I am not trying to make the best Transport on earth, just one that works well and can produce excellent sound when teamed with a good DAC.

The CD-ROM has a digital output?

What kind of interface is the digital output? SPDIF? ATA/IDE? Are you using a IDE to SPDIF backplane?

Also, does it have any other button on there other than eject, say... a play button?

I've never seen a CD-ROM that isn't controlled through the PC's GUI because CD-ROMs don't generally have command buttons on them.

Also, can I hook an after market powercord from the wall straight into the CD-ROM?

Notice, I haven't called this device a "transport" in this thread, yet.