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transport sound quality of good modern CDPs

Used to be they made big heavy expensive CD transports that improved the sound out of your DAC over a standard CDP transport section. Very few are made anymore, yet there are plenty of good outboard DACs on the market. The better one-box CDPs can often sound as good as redbook allows, yet most seem to use generic off-the-shelf ho-hum transport mechanics with maybe a little tweaking to the servo circuitry. So my question is two-fold:

1) Have the lightweight seemingly modest transports in excellent sounding $2-4K CDPs gotten good enough that their mfgs feel their sound can't be significantly improved by using a near-industrial-grade transport?

2) Would there be a notable sound difference by running the digital output of say a Musical Fidelity A308 CDP into a $5K outboard DAC vs running a Levinson No 37 transport into the same DAC? Or for that matter, a Rega Planet or NAD C541i?
128x128sdecker
vgrubb
33 posts
 
Sdecker,
You should try a good transport like a Levinson, Audiomeca or Accustic Arts. You'll be amazed at the difference over a DVD or CDP.
Vic
brawny
51 posts
 
Hi Sdecker,

I'm currently looking for a decent transport to run into my Art Audio Gil Elise DAC. Coincidentally, I was considering the Musical Fidelity 308 because of it's very low jitter and the fact it uses a Sony drive in lieu of the unreliable Phillips' drives. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. Can you give me your impressions of the 308. Does it have any problems reading CDR's and CDR's over 74 minutes? I've been using a friend's Vecteur CD-player as a transport and have been pretty impressed but it sometimes has disc reading problems. Don't know if the Musical Fidelity would be any better. Any info woud be greatly appreciated!
sdecker's avatar
sdecker OP
143 posts
 
VGrubb, I would love to audition a Levinson or equivalent transport, but don't know anyone with one, nor live near a dealer that carries high-end transports for home audition. Which is why I posted the question...

Brawny, I was using the MF308 as an example of a good CDP using what I presume is a mundane sub-Levinson drive. I use a good Philips CDP from '90 driving my BelCanto DAC2. And that has no problems reading 80min CDRs AND CDRWs. They don't make them like they used to. I'm sure you can get plenty of answers to your 308 question on this forum as that CDP has sold thousands.
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