CD transports; do they really matter

Why not try listening to one in your system ? 

the transport matters. big time, interconnect too, defies logic, really wish it weren‘t so. Take @stuartk‘s sage advice and see for yourself.

If you can‘t hear a difference count yourself very lucky..

There is no longer a compelling reason to buy a CD player unless you love playing with physical things.

The arguments for streaming are manifold, however this is not a universally held view. See threads discussing this issue.

The difficult piece is finding a dealer who will send me a transport to sample in my system.  Obviously that would be the simple way to determine if there is any improvement compared to my current CD player.

@pesky_wabbit 

the transport matters. big time, interconnect too, defies logic, really wish it weren‘t so. Take @stuartk‘s sage advice and see for yourself.

If you can‘t hear a difference count yourself very lucky.

Correct! For those who say they hear little difference between  CD transports , okay then buy the cheapest one you can find and be done with it. My experience has been quite different and there are significant degrees of sonic quality amongst them. 

Without exception in my listening experiences the better the CD transport quality,  the better the sound quality. CD transports as the source to the downstream DAC play a crucial role. I own the Pro Ject RS2T CD transport and its insertion into my audio system is undeniably  impactful.  Its sound quality is superb. 

The belief that it's all about the DAC is misguided in my opinion. Same sorce priciple applies to music servers/streamers. As they increase in their quality,  so does the overall sound quality. A friend of mine recently acquired the Taiko Extreme music server  and the impact and improvement it provides compared  to the former server is profound!  Front end digital sources matter and matter greatly. 

If one cannot hear or appreciate the difference then yes, of course it'd be a waste of money and pointless to upgrade to better quality digital  source transport /music server  components. 

Charles