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A phenomenal new CD transport-Pro-Ject CD Box RS2 transport

I have had in-house for the last week Pro-Ject's new CD Box RS2 transport to review for the website Stereo Times. I was very curious to assess its performance because it uses the Pro 8 drive with the Blue Tiger CD-84 servo card. This drive was developed and built by StreamUnlimited a company started by the original Phillips designers that historically built the finest CD mechanisms. Only two other companies use the StreamUnlimited 8 drive and Blue Tiger CD-84 servo card, their pieces cost $16,000 and $39,000 compared to Pro-Ject's sane price of $3,000!

My reference for the last two years has been the excellent Jay's Audio MK-II transport that had out-performed much more expensive highly regarded transports in my system. Well, across every sonic parameter  (transparency/micro-details-overall dynamics/bottom-end extension/purity of tonality- a much more airy sound-stage with wonderful 3D imaging) compared to the Jay's Audio transport.

That's way I titled this thread a "phenomenal new CD transport" because while not inexpensive, it just might be a bargain based on its performance. Mind you, this superlative level of performance is based on using the switching power supply that Pro-Ject ships the transport with. I have shortly coming a custom 20 watt 3 amp linear power supply from Linear Tube Audio and Pro-Ject's own upgraded power supply to see if the RS2 transport performance will even go to a higher qualitative level of performance.

I'll be writing a full detailed review for Stereo Times in the near future. However, I wanted to share this information to GON members who still spin CDs. I have had numerous CD transports in for evaluation and this just might be the best sounding of all of them.

Teajay (Terry London)




amorstereo
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 

@ridoves 

+1. I'd give the remote a grade of B for functionality.   The CD transport gets an A+ for sound quality. 

Charles 

bobheinatz
724 posts
 

I am seriously looking at buying the Pro-ject Cdt based on all the great feedback from owners on this thread.  Here's  my question: I was originally going to put alot more of my budget into a DAC and spend about $500 - $1000 on the transport.  With a total budget of $5k - $6k does it make sense to get the Pro-ject  or spend the bulk of the budget on the dac?

charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 

@bobheinatz

The CD transport is your source component as it preceeds the DAC in your signal chain. There are those who will say any decent CD player/transport will be fine as it’s only about the 1s and 0s. I vehemently disagree with this shallow and superficial mindset.

The higher the quality and thus competency of the vital CD transport, the better the resultant sound quality. I strongly believe that it’d be pennywise and pound foolish to go skimp on the transport by thinking only the DAC matters. They both matter. An argument could be  made that the transport (source) is equally as important as the DAC if not in fact more so.

Attention paid to a solidly constructed CD spinning mechanism that seriously addresses vibration management is very crucial.  Cheaper budget transports won't offer the same degree of attention or implementation (You have to cut corners somewhere to keep it inexpensive).

My advice is to buy the best quality CD transport you can comfortably afford. I don’t believe that you’d ever 2nd guess this decision. The many positive testimonies in regard to the Pro-Ject CD Box RS2 transport in this thread are accurate. As noted before, it is small in form factor (By design) but huge in its sonic performance. Excellent with the standard wall wart power supply and clearly improved if one uses an optional linear power supply. My 2 cents worth.

Charles

facten
2,882 posts
 

I don't own the Project but 100% agree with Charles about the improvement in SQ with better transports. I went from a fairly competent Cambridge CXC to a Simaudio 260D and the improvement was quite noticeable.

bobheinatz
724 posts
 

Thanks Charles & Facten.

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