CD transports; do they really matter

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 

+1 Charles.

When I purchased my Mojo Audio EVO DAC, Ben at Mojo advised that I purchase a better transport if I wanted to get the more out of the EVO. I went with a Sim and there was a noticeable improvement from a Cambridge transport in my system.

@mdrone - maybe PM member amorstereo (Terry London) , he is a reviewer and has stated that he has had several transports in his system including the Project that Charles noted above. I expect that he would give you a balanced view of transports. Below is a link to his review of the Project Transport 

Pro-Ject CD Box RS2 Transport (stereotimes.com)

solid feels better, but

the drawer could be made of granite, rolling on ruby diamonds, or cardboard, totally irrelevant.

after closing, disc gets lifted up and spun, by nearly universal parts, and nearly universal brains, to maintain a constant data stream speed.

"CDs spin at about 500 rpm when read near the center, decreasing to approximately 200 rpm when read near the circumference, producing a constant linear velocity."

the laser simply moves independently in a straight line below the spinning disc, also governed by nearly universal parts and brains

the cheapest portable cd player is able to do this, it's the software, up-scale, re-clock, anti-jitter, error correction, filters, then the dac(s) that make the audible difference.

they've mattered very much in my system