If the DAC is the same, how different do CD transports sound?

@jasonbourne71 You're a broken record but you speak truth. If companies that made stereo stuff, especially any type of ultra high profit cable, relied on blind testing, most of them would go out of business. George Michael said it best, you gotta have faith.

Sorry Jasonborne, cables and transport matter, in my experience anyway.

No need to apologize to this human being . That’s his full time job 

I went from a Cambridge transport to a PS Audio transport and finally a Jay's cdt2-mk3 transport. 

Absolutely amazing amount of difference in sound performance and all with the same Gustard x26 pro dac.

Also of note, using the Jay's with I2S connection via a Tubulus Concentus cable, quite a step up from the coax connections I had with the Cambridge and PS Audio. Sorry Jasonborne, cables and transport matter, in my experience anyway.

I heard I nice improvement going from the Audiolab 6000 to the Project CD Box RS2 T.  I didn't level match the and blind compare lol but I did notice things sounding better more real and less digital.  I also notice that playing a CD from the disc through my DAC sounds drastically better than streaming it through Roon. 

@jasonbourne71  how do you level match a transport?

Harley Lovegrove of Pearl Acoustics is known for designing speaker enclosures states that from his listening tests transports don’t matter.

Benjamin Zwickel who designs and builds highly regarded Mojo Audio DACs tells his customers that the quality of the transport either holds back or releases the capabilities of a DAC.

You decide

It’s so funny, people like Jason Bourne who shout “blind tests” in your face, never do any blind tests for themselves! 😂🤔. Why? Because they believe everything sounds the same, thus nothing to prove to themselves or anyone else. 

@hilde45 I was thinking about this type of testing where there’s a group of people listening to different components, in this case, transports. 
In my opinion, I would not rely on this type of evaluation:

1. The evaluation is done by a group of people not thoroughly and intimately familiar with the system. 
2. It was a quick A/B type comparison. 
 

Reason why I would not rely on this - 

A listener needs time to evaluate a change brought by a component in a system they are familiar with. This takes hours, if not days, listening to one component then repeating the process with the old component back in its place. Asking a person to evaluate a change in the system they’re not familiar with is not doing anyone or the component any favors. The brain needs time to get a good baseline and in this case, that time isn’t allowed.
For this reason alone, the results of this evaluation are pure entertainment and cary very little, if any, real world value. You have a panel of listeners with too many variables they’re put up against to make a proper judgement call. 

This of course is just my opinion and how I see and treat these types of listening tests. This is also why a blind A/B is bull 💩. It’s too quick and too flawed in its set up and execution. 

@yage Thanks for watching and commenting thoughtfully. I am curious whether Mr. Lovegrove feels satisfied that a sufficiently high quality of transport (or player used as a transport) was represented in this listening trial. He went to a lot of trouble to do this experiment -- did he miss a chance to use the kinds of units people here are convinced make a difference? (In fairness, I am not sure if any here have done the kind of controlled listening test that Lovegrove did.)

I liked this video and the comparison. The players were level matched using a voltmeter and the listening panel seemed to be skilled. These and other details show that there was some thought and care that went into this experiment.

The conclusion drawn about all the transports playing through the same DAC isn’t surprising, just common sense.

@zlone

Is a transport + DAC equivalent to streaming? Pretty much. Either way, the digital data is being transmitted from point A to point B in a real-time fashion.

When I compared my Sony HAP-Z1ES streamer to my MBL 1621A transport, I could not distinguish a difference when they were running through the same DAC, an MBL 1611F. The rest of the chain was an MBL 6010D pre-amp, MBL 9007 monoblock amps, and MBL 111E speakers. I played the same song through both simultaneously and switched back and forth between them. They sounded identical to me. 

I sent the output to my headphone amp as well and kept playing music and switching between sources on the fly. Again, I wasn't able to detect a difference.

This was my experience: others may have different experiences. But in my system, my $2,000 streamer equaled my $20,000 transport.

I posted this on another thread :

Transports are not all the same SQ wise and will either hold back or release the potential of the DAC. Benjamin Zwickel, Mojo Audio DACs, clued me into this when I was purchasing one of his ,and he was correct. I went from Cambridge CXC to Simaudio DT 260 and the SQ materially improved. Check out the threads on the top Project transport or the Jay’s transports and you will find similar experiences. Also, when you go beyond the likes of the Cambridge or Audio Lab transports one of the digital output connections might be optimized for SQ so you may want to have a DAC that accepts that connection. I initially used the SPDIF on the Simaudio and it sounded very good. However, out of curiosity I asked Simaudio if one of the connections was optimized for SQ and was told the AES/EBU was. The result was a further uptick in SQ. I believe the top of the line Project is optimized likewise, though folks using the SPDIF connection appear to be very pleased with its SQ. I don’t know if either of the Jay’s transports have an optimized output.

I'll further add, it's not about bling , expectation bias, status ranking, and the rest of the  commentary.  It's about the resulting SQ. Try them firsthand and decide for yourself .

The DAC will make the most difference. In my experience.
With a caveat…you must use a decent CDT…something like the units I mentioned above. Don’t waste money on a good dac if you plan to drive it with a $99 universal player from early 2000s. Just like anything else in this hobby, you can get by but to realize a full potential of any given component the rest of your system must be on the level. 
 

@audphile1

there’s a difference between CD transports. Higher end transports use better quality parts, better power supplies as well as better chassis and dampening. This results in improved sound quality.

That was my assumption going in. I think that was the assumption of Mr. Lovegrove. It was not borne out in this test. That’s interesting to me because it helps strengthens the argument for optimizing a CD-DAC combo by putting most of one's time, energy, and money into the DAC. This does not mean get a bad CD player. And this was a point I believe @jjss49 made on another thread, and now we have a video about this same topic.

@jasonbourne71 If you watch the video first, you won't need to say "Only a blind listening test to eliminate sighted bias and matched output voltage levels has any validity. Anything else is anecdotal!"

They should be very similar.   You've hit on a key point.  The main difference in the sound between CD players is the relatively cheap onboard DAC that each uses.  Eliminate the DAC and now you've eliminated most of the variance.

So it comes down to which CD transport drops the most bits and introduces the most jitter.   Good CD transports should do very little of either so it should be hard to tell them apart.

Jerry

The question the OP is posting is about the difference between various CD transports. Level matching does not come into play here. Neither is this a discussion in a difference between CD players.

@hilde45 - there’s a difference between CD transports. Higher end transports use better quality parts, better power supplies as well as better chassis and dampening. This results in improved sound quality.

That being said, the current under $1,000 “budget” transports like the Audiolab, Cambridge and Pro-Ject are really excellent. I checked out a few in my system and if streaming didn’t beat them, I’d definitely go for one of those.

As to A/B testing - quick A/B is never a good way to fully appreciate the differences, blind testing or not. Take your time with each component and trust your ears.

Hey jasonbourne. I think the first consumer CD player was introduced by Sony in 1982. The CDP-101. I was in Germany at the time (in the US Army) and my buddy bought one at the post exchange. Also Philips (the co-developer of the CD player) introduced one as well. I actually bought the Hitachi brand, just like you did... but a little later.

Also I agree that if you find a quality integrated amp that can switch two digital sources and the listener does not know which one they are listening to, that might be a good way to test two players. I think any way you can do this with headphones might be an even better way to eliminate external noise.

jasonbourne, Why don't you tell us exactly how you do your blind a/b testing, including all of the details of set up etc? Then we could copy your methodology  and see if we agree with your conclusions. 

 without a blind test with matched levels your reporting is only anecdotal. As Perry Mason would say "Can't stand up in Court".

Well, I have forgotten your scientific approach "it's only 0 and 1".

If you say so. 🙄

zlone

When using an external DAC, isn’t a CD player really just a streamer?

No, streaming and CD playback are two entirely different protocols.

Your CD player will sound different if you use it as transport, you will hear the digital cable , interconnect, and pc used by your DAC. I find using DAC is better.assuming  it matches .Not always its up to you how you will utilize The changes.

When using an external DAC, isn’t a CD player really just a streamer? In my experience, streamers vary significantly in their performance and are affected by noise and jitter. I have doubts that fancy transports make a difference, they are just reading data, and the real magic happens between the drive and the digital output of the player. Thoughts?

In an A/B comparison the unit with the higher output voltage will sound better. That’s how we humans respond! The difference can be as little as .1 of a volt or less! That is why matching the output levels is so important! This applies to DAC'S and preamps too!

@knock1 : without a blind test with matched levels your reporting is only anecdotal. As Perry Mason would say "Can't stand up in Court".

I had an Oppo 970HD connected to a MyDac.  it sounded ok then I swapped out a Tascam CD-RW900MKII again through the MyDac.

The sound was much richer fuller, the Oppo sounded thin.  I was pleasently surprised

Too bad the well-heeled audiophile can't wear that $3K transport on the wrist to show it off like a fancy watch! 

I posted this in neighboring discussion recently:

I will describe to you my experience, not what I had read or heard from others. I bought Denafrips Ares II and utilized Arcam CD192 as a transport, it was great improvement, then I replaced Arcam with Cambridge CXC transport that was very noticeable improvement over Arcam transport section. I did go further up the ladder since. I have learned from my own experience that dedicated transport matters.

Now I am using Jay's Audio CDT2-MK3 with Denafrips Venus II 12th it is impressive improvement in comparison to Cambridge/AresII. Also, the HDMI connection over coaxial makes considerable difference, mostly much greater three dimensionality and placement of the instruments  using HDMI. I do agree with Harley that a DAC makes greater difference then transport. My experience.

I remain skeptical about the soaring prices of DAC'S and now transports! Methinks this is a moneyphile thing driven by expectation bias and status-ranking. Digital's promise was the perfect transfer/transmission of the encoded data. Unlike Analog where every copy is at least slightly different! Plus everytime an Analog recording is played back there is loss and degradation.

I listened to the first consumer CD player in 1982. The vertical-loading Hitachi ($1000). I did not sell my TT and LP'S. This was at the best HiFi dealer in Connecticut. I waited until 1992 to buy my first CD player. In fact I bought my first CD in the Fall of 1991 - a mark-down at Square Circle in the local mall. This despite not having a player! More mark-down CD'S followed before I bought my first CD player - a lowly Technics SLP 340 from J&R Music on Park Row in NYC. I kept my TT and LP'S.

Only a blind listening test to eliminate sighted bias and matched output voltage levels has any validity. Anything else is anecdotal!