Are all red book cd transports created equal?


Quite simply the transport on my rega Jupiter is failing and I have an old pdr-19rw pioneer elite that has the same digital output. In theory bits are bits right? Should I swap them out or will the old unit sound as inferior as all those original cd’s did?
128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xsteve59
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.
@steve59,

I understand you are not quite ready to give up on CD’s yet. I would use Pioneer player in the interim and invest in a high quality streamer with internal hard drive so you can enjoy bit perfect rips of your CD’s.

There are plenty of software programs (Express Rip, Audiograbber) and standalone high quality ripper like Innuos Zen Mini MK3 or Vault 2i that will make exact copies of your original CD’s.

My 800 plus CD’s rips stored on my Aurender N10 sounds just as good as my original CD’s.
I would use Pioneer player in the interim and invest in a high quality streamer with internal hard drive so you can enjoy bit perfect rips of your CD’s.

This will only be close to bit perfect if he uses a good CD transport, other wise there’ll be errors and jitter transferred to the HD.
Then there’s write and read back errors from the HD, probably powered by an smp, so noise to add to that also.
I’ve yet to hear a streamer/hd sound as good as a proper CD transport playing the same CD.
Cheers George