Is it worth upgrading a CD player?

@fleschler 

Yep! It would be a wonderful situation if we could audition components that interest us in our homes prior to purchase. Just isn’t possible with all of them. If you have any interest in the Pro-Ject RS 2T, you could get it from an online seller like Audio Advisor /Music Direct with a 30 day trial period and judge for yourself.

The flagship Jay’s Audio CDT3 MK III seems like it could be a really fine transport. Given your vast experience with CD players/transports and your methodical approach I believe that you’ll acquire the right choice for you. I’m having a new DAC built for me now (In Ukraine) an Abbas Audio 3.2SE. I’m really looking forward to pairing it with the splendid RS2T.

Charles

fleschler

The Pioneer Elite DV-50AVi makes for a better DVD player. Its partner the AVi79 is geared more for CD playback. Go for the Luxman 03x. It is a very fine CD player.

Happy Listening!

DV-59AVi : corrected.

Fleschler,

At $500 the Audiolab is a great unit, and I am completely happy with it in my $15,000 system.....but from the sound of it, your system is higher end. For the money it can't be beat. It's easy to find on sale, you could try it and see if it works for you and return it if not. Some people may not like the fact that it is a slot loader, but the loader works really well.

Is the Jay's CD2 MkIII at $2,500 5X times better than the Audiolab?.....of course not. However one look inside will show the CD2 is the better made unit, and is clearly audibly the better unit. It is also a top loader which some/most will prefer, and adds adds I2S and AES/EBU inputs which the Audiolab does not have....big, heavy, sturdy

The Jay's CD3 at $5,000 is clearly the better built transport with very high quality components....beautiful inside. Sound wise it is the best CD transport or CD player I have ever heard by a good margin, and it adds more inputs than the CD2.....I was amazed at it's weight.....gotta be over 40 pounds

Bottom line: when I have the funds available, I will be buying one of the Jay's CD transports.....I might recommend the CD3 MkII, as I don't think it would be a limiting factor in your system.

My best friend just sent me another transport only unit to consider, the NuPrime CDT-10 for about $2,250 weighing in at 9.9 lbs.

What I find disconcerting is the conversion of the initial data stream is achieved by up-sampling to mega hertz before down converting to one of 13 selectable sampling rates for the CD format to higher sampling rates. Did they just plug in a chip which they programmed to alter sampling rates? This sounds like something is wrong to begin with.

Does anyone have experience with this unit? The ad copy is great, but how good is it musically, compared to Project and Jay’s?