Aqua 'La Diva' ($9k) or Gryphon 'Ethos' ($39k) versus. Pro-Ject CD Box RS2 T ($3k)?

@erictal4075 

I'll differ with you on one point.  I don't feel that the Gryphon ETHOS CD player is ridiculously priced.  It is  targeted for those shopping in a very specific and exclusive segment.  Everyone is free to determine their discretionary spending budget. 

My interest and focus is toward the common ground utilization of the newest tech,  the Stream Unlimited CD Pro-8 drive. There are currently 3 brands that have selected for their dedicated CD transports.

Accustic Arts Drive II. 18K

Aqua Hifi La Diva M2. 9K

Pro-Ject CD BOX RS2T.3K

My singular curiosity is what are the two higher cost transports doing with the excellent CD drive unit above and beyond Pro-Ject' s implementation,  and if and how does it impact the sound quality and to what extent? Just pure interest,. The Pro-Ject transport comes with a wall wart power supply and sounds terrific.  An optional  LPS is available which is said to improve the sound quality. 

The Accustic Arts and Aqua Hifi transports have LPS as standard. Both are noticeably larger, heavier and in my opinion more visually appealing/attractive compared to the diminutive and understated Pro-Ject. Further curiosity is how do the Accustic Arts and Aqua Hifi differ between each other?

I'm awaiting a Fidelizer Nikola 2 LPS and will see what I hear with it compared to the SMPS wall wart.

Charles 

Immersed in watching the video I posted above, I see a connection between the kind of inspired talent those railway engineers of so long ago displayed so spectacularly and courageously applies in a different but equally impressive way to what the best minds of today are doing when confronting the challenges of converting digital "ones and zeros" into analog sound that our ears and brains can perceive as a true-to-life replication of the original recorded event. Pioneering efforts all the way around.

“Transports and servers are crucial partners and their level of quality matters.”

@charles1dad

I am in complete agreement. I love to own a player like Ethos or La Diva but instead I’ve taken a slightly different approach to digital playback. Instead of relying on CD transports, I bought a high quality CD ripper with SSD storage last year. After extensive A/B, I could not discern any audible differences between a CD playback and the ripped tracks of the same albums played through my DAC. BTW, I am still buying CD’s that offers superior recording quality and ripping them to SSD for playback :-)

Late last year, I’ve upgraded my DAC that eliminated the need for a external server or streamer. It has also eliminated the need to rely on vulnerable digital protocols like USB, AES or SPDIF. I couldn’t be any happier!

The best CD transport of the world is of Esoteric. Vrds Atlas. Dcs Vivaldi One use the Vrds Neo that is of much lower quality that Vrds Atlas. It costs $80000.

@lalitk: Which CD Ripper did you get, and do you know what kind of CD-reading mechanism it uses? You describe your Ripper as being "high quality" - therefore you must be reasonably confident that the device inside your Ripper which reads the data off your CDs is trustworthy, and not merely some generic off-the-shelf Blue-Ray, CD-ROM or DVD-ROM mechanism.

If your Ripper uses the same transport mechanism found in the Pro-Ject CD BOX RS2 T, then you’re likely getting the best transfer currently possible of your CDs’ data into your SSD storage.

Is your CD-ripping machine a top-loader, or does it have an opening/closing tray which slides out the front of the unit to receive your CDs, or does it have a narrow slot into which you insert your CDs, which are then "swallowed" (drawn in) by your Ripper?