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CD transports; do they really matter

In my pursuit of total sonic harmony, I have been investigating whether a CD transport ( to replace my bulky and aged Luxman CD player ) would be a good option.  I had an interesting conversation with the manufacturers rep of a respected brand regarding his companies CD transport.  He basically said its all in the DAC, the transport, as long as its not a cheap component, does not make much or any difference. So, I ask does it really matter?

mdrone
audio-union's avatar
audio-union
179 posts
 

I distribute CEC.

Jitter is going to be the lowest with a belt drive transport. The noise level will be lower with a belt drive because the motor is farther away from the noise sensitive laser head. Suspension system of the transport, you usually can not see the suspension system if there is one, are important to keep the noise down. It turns out CD playback is sensitive to vibrations. The lower the vibration sensitivity of laser head / disk turntable, the lower the noise in the data stream to a DAC.

Turns out the basic design of the transport makes a difference to the playback of a CD. Belt drives will always outperform a direct drive transport in my opinion as an engineer.

vitussl101's avatar
vitussl101
182 posts
 

Cannot believe a rep would say that about his own products.

nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,887 posts
 

Why not? He was completely upfront about it and contributed to the conversation in a helpful way, offering another way of seeing things, making some good points for consideration. 

All the best,
Nonoise

cdc
1,807 posts
 
charles1dad

 

I would love to try the RS2T but think I will have to settle for the DS2T. Is there much difference?

It seems most people say digital is less affected than analog. Especially with low level signals That is why pre-amp is so sensitive vs amp. Digital cable less important than analog . It's one reason why they say digital EQ is better than analog. How you think it?

I find the transport and DAC make distinctly different contributions to the sound. Hard to express but transport is timing, solid, coherence and DAC is harmonics, texture, naturalness of sound.

liquidsound's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
liquidsound
154 posts
 

In my experience, a CD transport over a CD player is the way to go.  I began using my CD player as a transport when I bought a new DAC as it was sonically better than the CD player's internal DAC.  After a period of time, I took a chance and replaced the CD player as a transport with a used 47-Labs Flat-Fish transport and again, heard a noticeable sonic improvement.  Recently, I upgraded to a new CD transport (Jay's-Audio CDT-2 Mk 2), it was obvious that this new transport was sonically better than the 47-Labs transport.  Plus it has several types of outputs rather than just SPDIF.  I'm using the HDMI I2s output from the Jay's-Audio.  The older 47-Labs Flat-Fish is still a good transport, but the Jay's-Audio transport has proven to be more sonically satisfying to me.  If your CD player's transport/circuitry is of really high quality, you may not experience the need for a separate CD transport, however with the number of really high-quality DAC's out there, as well as reasonably priced high-quality CD transports available, you may want to do a comparison for yourself.  I personally don't know of a CD player that matches the sonic quality of a great CD transport and DAC combination.  This is also because I like to spin discs and don't necessarily want to load it into my music-server.  

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