new updates in transports or are they obsolete ?

Baddabod-

I'll throw my $0.02 in here in defense of Audioengr, since I've got no skin in the game as to whether or not you go HD or transport. My computer based rig sounds to my ear as good as my Eso DV-50s when run through my dCS upsampler and DAC. In terms of economy, I use Apple Lossless (yes, it in fact is lossless, bit-perfect output from the USB) and, by my estimate, I could fit about 2000 CDs (this includes redundant 128 kbps AAC files for *every* song for use with my iPod), with album art and full tagging, on my 1TB RAID 5 box. My 1TB RAID 5 box was under $1K to my door (I've actually got two--a 1TB Terastation and an older Dell Powervault that was much more expensive, but probably unnecessary expense). Its a highly reliable system and the ability to access songs is unparalleled.

OK, you can buy a nice transport for less than a grand.

But, can you get to any song in your collection in less than a second? Can you create playlists that are accessible anytime you want? Can you play a playlist and have hours, or even days, or continuous music? Can your girlfriend/wife easily select songs and use your gear? Do you spend time cleaning CDs? Are there unplayable CDs in your collection (there used to be in mine, but EAC eventually gave me playable .wav files from them)? Here's my favorite... Can you access any CD from your transport when in different rooms? I use some thin-client network devices and can have access to similar functionality in my garage, my pool room, my study, my bedroom...

Trying to do a $ for $ comparison just doesn't work--computer based audio provides you with a host of functionality that a transport will not...

Baddabob- the Stello CDT200 is a front loader and stock it out performed a DV-50s in a tri-amp'd TacT system. It was reviewed on stereotimes.com. It doesn't need to be modified,
but like everything it can benefit from a few tweaks.

Personally, I'm not concern about switching to any song in less than a second,creating playlists or owning an iPod.

Very well said, Edesilva!

All very convincing. The jukebox feature would be nice, but I am a classical/jazz fan, so maybe not as important as for others. And I wasn't meaning to cast aspersions on Audioengr's credibility. I do find in this hobby though that enthusiasm can sometimes get ahead of itself. Good to hear about that 1 TB Raid 5 box. That is a better price than I would have thought; I imagine it would be faster than these pokey 7200 rpm drives you can buy at Best Buy, would it?

There may be marginal speed benefits from RAID 5, since I *think* there is some striping, but its not like RAID 1 (RAID 0? I get those confused--whichever is striping but no redundancy), which really is faster even with the same speed drives. That said, I have yet to have speed problems reading from these drives when playing music. Writing is a different matter. When updating tags, the terastation is very slow. But, since I usually am updating tags while doing something else, it really hasn't annoyed me too much.

One aspect of networked/computer based audio that I didn't mention is that I get to hear a bunch of stuff that I ordinarily wouldn't throw in the CD player. I can just set the thing on random play with the whole collection while I'm working on something else, and its amusing what pops up. I've actually probably heard a greater variety of what is in my collection--albums or songs I've forgotten--than I did before. There is also an embarrassing amount of "what-the-heck-is-that"--songs/artists I've forgotten, some of which provokes some rather interesting memories.

I think my next project is actually ripping my classical CDs and getting those out of the living room as well. I've resisted doing it so far, because classical doesn't seem quite as amenable to "random" play or playlists, but I'm beginning to see how it really could work. Think I'm probably going to have to get another terastation for those...

I should also mention that another nice aspect of the terastation is that its actually pretty quiet. My other RAID 5 setup--a Dell Powervault 745N--is like a 747 on take-off. My original concept was stuffing it in a closet, but even in a closet it would require an acoustic cabinet. The terastation is a much smaller, more friendly form factor and it is realistic to put it almost anywhere.