Are all red book cd transports created equal?

millercarbon

There are no bits on a CD. What you think are bits are really pits and land ... Since the length of the pit or land is what determines the string then timing matters which means when you really get right down to it its analog not digital.

This is especially convoluted pretzel logic. A CD is not analog. It contains a non-continuous, discrete string of data that is not an "analog" of any signal, but a mathematical representation of a signal. That’s what digital is. The timing issue - for the purpose of resolving data - is functionally perfect. Timing data is included in the data string and any error is trivial compared to even the best analog. That’s why you can install even a complex computer OS from a digital disc without issue. The data is absolutely the same every time.

I’m not saying digital is perfect, by the way, and getting digital data from disc to DAC and out to analog is not a trivial task when fidelity is the goal. But CD is not analog. Not even close.

The only way to know is try and hear for yourself.

I agree there. That is always, always, always the case.

steve59
In theory bits are bits right?

There are differences, read error correction is not the same and can vary quite considerably between CD transports, and an error is replaced (guessed) by what came before it, a 1 or 0 and it only gets it right 50% of the time.
As well as the amount of jitter out of that spidf output, which I had a jitter counter to read it and they are very different.

Better transports have less read errors, and better jitter on their outputs.
If you want another good cheap CD transport, get a Cambridge Audio CXC very good, not the best, but you have to pay big bucks for those and not that much better.

Cheers George

Thanks for the replies. I have the option of burning them to my pc to load into my streamer, but I’m not ready to give up the cd format completely yet.

I have the option of burning

Don’t burn, much more errors come with doing this, that why they nearly always sound brighter, and less easy to listen to.

Left-original store bought stamped CD
Center and right both burnt, one gold blank the other normal

https://ibb.co/grHv6z7

Now you can see why the error increases the pits/lands are deformed.

Cheers George

My opinion based on owning many CD transports is NO, they are not all created equal.