Music Servers VS Excellent Transports?

Andy,

I compared the EMM transport vs the Transporter and can't really say I heard any difference. I think when a transport is slaved to the Dac clock there should be little difference in digital front ends. The only time I listen to cds from the EMM transport is before I have ripped them to my system. The only reason I keep the EMM transport is for SACDs.

In response to Steve, I don't listen to vinyl and have never really had a top notch vinyl system to compare my digital setup to. I love the way my system sounds and really have no desire to go in the direction of vinyl. I am old enough to have had vinyl systems before digital was even available, but at the time I was too young and broke to really have a good analog system.

Walt

Ditto Walt. I too have an EMM transport and just use it for SACDs. Empirical Audio Turbo-2 feeding into the EMM DAC sounds the same as EMM transport into the DAC. CDs are ripped and then go straight into storage.

Walt - same here. I'm an old fart now, but I had inexpensive vinyl system when I was young. Sold all my records at garage sales. I've heard some really spectacular vinyl though I dont own one. I believe they have their own type of distortions, aside from the Wow and flutter. I much prefer 7.5 IPS reel-to-reel.

Steve N.

ditto Walt and Bigamp. I buy cds, listen to them, then rip them. Most of them go to storage but I do keep a stash of around 50 cds handy. Because I do not encode in lossless, I do believe my transport sounds marginally better than my Sonos. Like others, I keep my transport for sacds but I really only keep it so I can listen to cds I just bought. Sometimes I am too lazy to rip them right away.

Thanks for the responses Walt & Bigamp.

I have slaved my RME souncard to both the DAC clock and a very expensive rubidium clock, but the EMM transport sounds so much better, it's not even close. I am running AES to the DCC2. Not sure what the issue may be. I have used both foobar and a better program for sound, not ease of use, samplitude to make the comparison. The soundstage and detail are all gone with the computer transport. I so much want it to sound the same due to the ease of use, so i'm not biased here. It may be some OS/hardware problem, i guess. I think I'll demo the transporter again.