How does a Transport effect sound?


hi guys,

Been wondering about this: How does a CD Transport effect sound?  Isn't it just reading the disc and sending the 1s and 0s to the DAC.  Shouldn't every transport sound the same?

Thanks! 
leemaze
For a lot of insight into errors inherent in reading CD optical disks, try ripping a CD with DBpoweramp and learn.

It will give you actual metrics using reference database web service that gets updated and enhanced over time  as new user rips occur.   It provides metrics on how accurate the rip is compared to the current reference maintained in the database.     No need to guess.   More popular CDs can have up to 200 rips for reference available during ripping in the database.  Very cool!

Good quality CDs tend to rip fast and clean using my laptop’s disk reader. I’d estimate 60-70% of the time. More errors encountered and longer ripping time needed for rereads maybe 20-25% of the time with visually good quality disks. . Damaged CDs with visible scratches or flaws will almost always require multiple rereads to assure acuracy and take longer.

If you turn the accurate rip feature off, rips happen faster and you will be told how many errors occur per track.

The good news is that in most cases you will have to listen very hard on a really good system to hear most errors that do result with accurate rip off. I know of one CD out of several thousand I have ripped where the errors in the form of dropouts are clearly heard every time streamed.

Is there any CD transport that can do all that in real time as required? Also provide quality metrics as reading? I do not know of one. Most people would rather not know and never will need to I suppose.

That’s why I never play CDs anymore. I rip them to my library correctly once then stream from there.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that putting the Synchro-Mesh between any transport and DAC, will essentially turn the SQ of the transport (not the DAC) into something roughly equivalent to dCS, MBL, Esoteric, MBL. Is that accurate?

That is accurate.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

Is there any CD transport that can do all that in real time as required?

Actually, the PSAudio Memory Player transport might do error correction because it is essentially a computer with CDROM drive.

This will not make a big difference in sound quality however, because the difference between corrected reads by this transport and uncorrected reads by a typical non-computer transport is almost zero. In other words, errors are not common and even if they do occur, you will not hear it. It is the jitter that is prevalent and will make one transport sound bad and another one good.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

audioengr,

Based on the data I have seen ripping thousands of CDs and having DBPoweramp detect and show the errors, I would concur that when errors occur you will hardly ever if ever actually hear them.

However, they may not be as uncommon as some might think.

Also I agree, in reality and for all practical purposes, jitter is a much bigger concern and has stood in the way of good sound with CDs for many for many years. Much better but certainly not extinct these day, at least with cheaper low quality transports. Ripping and streaming is much more reliable. Even good quality and modest cost streamer/DAC combos can deliver very good, detailed, non fatiguing sound.
I would be quite interested in hearing from anyone who uses tweaks when ripping from a CD. You know, colored CDs, colored tray, demagnetization, edge beveling, ionizers, Silver Rainbow Foil, insuring the CD is absolutely level, things of that nature. Anybody? Can you tell I don’t really buy into the whole Read until Perfect thing? Anymore than I buy into the Reed Solomon Error Code thing? Is it just me? The word perfect has been so overused. Ever since the very beginning.