Silly Question...does a transport have a "sound" ?

Sean: Thank you for the history on the Hovland models. Much appreciated for your time to cover this. Perhaps their experiences are very parallel to mine as my 12 year-old PD-65 continues to do an incredible job as a transport.

Other than the $3k Magnepan 3.5 speakers, all other components in my system are in the $5k+ range. The fact that the PD-65 continues to work so well here says much about its performance. With this driving the Manley Ref DAC, some audio snobs would say this is like putting a Geo Metro engine in a Ferarri; but this simply is not the case at all.

And the PD-65 is built quite ruggedly....with a fairly decent remote. I simply have not been able to justify buying some other unit simply because mine has a "Pioneer" label on it. But my quest to find that one transport that stands way out from the crowd continues to this day.

John

What does G&D stand for. Are their transports still available?

It sounds like instead of buying a new dedicated CD player to improve upon my CD sound, I should just buy a good DAC and plug my Pioneer 47ai digital out to it.

Anyone recommend a good DAC for under $2k?

Jafox: G&D does mods to the PD-65 as far as i know. They were the first company to use such things as "super clocks" and "precision regulators" in mass produced audio gear. Prior to this, the only people doing such things were DIYer's tweaking their own gear. Tony simply put his DIY approach to improving a good but simple and cost effective product on the market for all to buy and use.

Ehoehn: I'm not 100% certain, but i think that G&D are the initials of the last names of the proprietors. Tony's name is something like De Giovanni or Giovanni, etc... Bob Crump would know this one.

As far as their transports still being available, i don't think so. It is possible that Tony may have some laying around somewhere, but i doubt it. This is not to say that he wouldn't be willing to modify what you already have. To be quite honest though, there are better ways to impliment the technology used in the mods that Tony came up with than the way that he did them many moons ago. In effect, one of these older "modified" transports could benefit from further modifications even today.

Bundy: Adding a DAC means two additional links to the chain. I don't know how "worthy" the Pioneer is in this regards ( due to lack of familiarity with it ), but most "professional tweakers" feel that a "one box" is capable of better performance than a "two box" that is built to the same standards. You might want to check with Rick at Electronic Visionary Systems or Kyle at Reference Audio Mods to see what they have to say. Rick is brutally honest and may talk you out of investing more money into the unit itself. That is, if he doesn't think it is worth messing with. Pioneer sometimes uses proprietary DAC's that aren't that great, wasting much of the potential benefits of a one-box design. Sean
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The partners in G&D are Ben Gilsdorf and Tony DiGiovine.
They stopped producing the UTP-1 transport several years ago. It's terrific especially when modded.

Brian