Differences between cd transports?

Bel Canto?

Hi, Guys,

Well, as the original poster of this question, I was astonished to see how lively and contentious this thread became, wandering into all sorts of detours surrounding directionality in wires, censored posts, etc. Just goes to show, you never know…

Anyway, what I have gleaned from this thread (the useful parts) is that the quality of the parts used in a CD transport, as pertains to accuracy of reading of the CD data and reduction of jitter, can make a difference in the quality of the reproduction of what's on the CD.

I'm going to make an offer to the fellow who lent me the Musical Fidelity CD transport. It's a great sounding piece and is not stratospheric in price like some of the current, "statement" transports out there. Another advantage is that track seek times are very fast.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. It was quite an eye-opener! :-)

Welcome to the club! The club of frustration. There is no doubt that the transport can make a difference to the sound, because I just experienced that myself. (You'll see that others, even professional reviewers, find that the transport or file streamer influences the sound).  Ideally the DAC should rectify all the bits and banish all jitter even from the digital cable, and present perfect sound but that does not seem to happen even with good quality Dacs of today.