lightening fast CD- I can move a needle on a turntable almost quicker than the laser

I just checked my Rega Saturn-R top loading CD player for load time. For a couple of different CDs, the load time was approx. 4-5 seconds from the time the lid was closed.

BTW, the Saturn-R is a fantastic CD player/Transport/DAC. I've really enjoyed it for the 3 years I've owned it.

I had one of the early Pioneer Elite high-end multi-format players a couple of years ago. It took something like 20-30 seconds to load a disc. Way too much time for me to tolerate.

Thankyou for your advice- people always used to go on about Philips transports

Currently I have a Mission Discmaster (top loading transport with glass lid and puck), Arcam Alpha and Alpha 8, Cambridge Audio CXC transport, Technics SL-PS840, Pioneer 656A  and VSX C300 DVD players.

They all still get used as CD players in various setups! Ironically one of my favourites is the 656A feeding into a SC-LX81 but the two workhorses are the Alpha 8  (biamped Alpha 8r and Alpha  8 power amp into B and W 601 series 2) and CXC (with CXN streamer into a CXA80 with Quad ESL57s)

In retirement is an early Phillips CD930, a Philips based Traxdata CD recorder, a couple of older chanmpagne coloured Oynko DVD players (surprisingly quick and solid) and an old high end Pioneer BluRay (incredibly slow but now deceased and in the black museum)

Appreciate all this stuff is mostly mid range and/or ancient

+1 @reubent .
ARC top loading CDP's cue up very quickly.

Keith, What disc player are you using? Some dedicated CD players load very quickly. I believe, in general, multi-format players, like DVD/SACD/DVD-A, etc., take longer to load as they must first determine what type of disc you've placed in the player. Anyway, that's been my experience. Dedicated CD player - quicker. Multi-format player - slower.

why are transports so slow?

Mechanical linear motion gear driven.
Top https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB15pGSSFXXXXc9XpXXq6xXFXXXm/Replacement-For-PHILIPS-CD-723-CD-DVD-Playe...
Bottom https://www.petervis.com/CD_and_DVD_Players/cd-player-laser-assembly/cd-player-laser-assembly/philip...


If you want the quickest, there are two

1:The linear magnetic driven sled, KSS151 laser CDP’s that are almost unobtainable.
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB17GWdKFXXXXayXpXXq6xXFXXXc/Original-KSS-151A-CD-DVD-player-laser-picku...
2:And the old Philips magnetic pivot arc tracing, also very hard to find
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HLB1zFvKavfsK1RjSszbq6AqBXXaE.jpg_q50.jpg

Cheers George