I just purchased the V2 of this transport, so I’m reviving an old thread.
In brief, my NAD CD player (about 8 years old) stopped reading discs: "Disc Error" messages persisted. I cleaned the lens with a commercial product to no avail. I waited and waited and waited for the fabled Schiit unit but gave up.
A visit to the local audio shop ("Stereotypes" in Portland, OR: very helpful and accommodating, offering in-home trials of just about anything) narrowed it to the Cambridge (~$550) vs. the Moon by Simaudio (~$2000) transports to use with my Mytek Brooklyn DAC+, LRS, Classé DR-9 and etc., I wasn’t able to justify the cost difference. In part, that’s because my CD library (maybe ~500 discs) wasn’t sufficiently expansive and - at least with my modest system - the possibly improved audio quality didn’t justify the cost difference. I don’t have the patience to load all my discs into a hard drive unit, so I decided a modestly priced transport would serve my needs.
As for the transport itself, it’s very well built and it sounds perfectly fine to me. It's significantly better than the old NAD. Overall, it’s comparable to Tidal streamed and a bit less satisfying than analog (VPI HW-19, Mørch UP-4 arm, Sumiko BP#2). Given the proximity to a first class record store ("Music Millenium") with its huge selection of cheap CDs, this should be a good long-term arrangement for me.
In brief, my NAD CD player (about 8 years old) stopped reading discs: "Disc Error" messages persisted. I cleaned the lens with a commercial product to no avail. I waited and waited and waited for the fabled Schiit unit but gave up.
A visit to the local audio shop ("Stereotypes" in Portland, OR: very helpful and accommodating, offering in-home trials of just about anything) narrowed it to the Cambridge (~$550) vs. the Moon by Simaudio (~$2000) transports to use with my Mytek Brooklyn DAC+, LRS, Classé DR-9 and etc., I wasn’t able to justify the cost difference. In part, that’s because my CD library (maybe ~500 discs) wasn’t sufficiently expansive and - at least with my modest system - the possibly improved audio quality didn’t justify the cost difference. I don’t have the patience to load all my discs into a hard drive unit, so I decided a modestly priced transport would serve my needs.
As for the transport itself, it’s very well built and it sounds perfectly fine to me. It's significantly better than the old NAD. Overall, it’s comparable to Tidal streamed and a bit less satisfying than analog (VPI HW-19, Mørch UP-4 arm, Sumiko BP#2). Given the proximity to a first class record store ("Music Millenium") with its huge selection of cheap CDs, this should be a good long-term arrangement for me.