Why use CD Transport instead of computer source

Where did this blind tests occur at the Manufacturer-Ditributor instalations or in a neutral field.

I think most serious audiophiles dont cheat themselves, I wont mind having a cheaper player beat a very expensive transport, hell I will sell my Forsell in an instant and pocket 4k if the SB3 was better, then take a trip to Europe or pay off my credit card!!!

I have a fiend who always wants something to sound better when it really doesnt, "take a look this cheapy DVD player sound better than this multidollar Player", he uses a bunch of tricks, from different Interconnect cables, different power cords, he even has dedicated power lines in one contact and the house normal lines on the other, plus a mediocre system... this is in his house and the only benefit he gets is our non believing face and a laugh!!!

The test was done in a dedicated listening room that has been well treated for room acoustics. The system is a system we are both very familiar with, the listen levels where matched, and we choose the same listening material, started at the exact same time.

We switched back and forth between the two inputs via the Sim Audio preamp. The preamps display was blocked so that the person taking the test could not see which input was in use.

The end result was that we could not tell which source was playing even though we could recognize slight details between the two. Neither was better, neither was worse than the other. The deciding factor was the user interface of the Mac setup was better, plus the ability to access the entire music collection without leaving the listening position sealed the deal.

Like I said up above, cost is no issue. He can have any source player in the world and he has chosen a hard drive based source.

Jstovall389 - WiFi will not suffer sound quality hits over USB. In fact USB is more difficult to get right. WiFi is always bit-perfect. Only jitter has to be dealt with. The only disadvantage of WiFi is some times it gets interference from wireless phones or microwaves, and it is limited to 16/44.1 in most cases.

As for computers at their perfomance limits: This usually only happens with USB and it is a latency issue. Even the CPU at 10% utilization can cause pops and ticks if the system is poorly set-up. If the optimum drivers etc. are used, USB can be problem-free and has the advantage of supporting 24/96. The sound quality is never affected by this. It only causes momentary drop-outs when it happens. The bigger contributors to SQ with USB is the clock used in the converter, the USB cable, the chip doing the ISB to I2S conversion, and of course the circuit-board implementation.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer

I have just concluded an interesting 4-day listening session using various sources.

The sources were:
1) my own Audio Research CD3MkII cd player
2) Slim Devices Transporter
3) Bel Canto DAC3

I run my entire system balanced.
Interconnects from source to preamp were Acoustic Zen Silver Reference MkII. From preamp into amp Acoustic Zen Matrix Reference MkII. Power cords used on source components were Shunyata Python VX and Audience powerChord.

My goal was to see how a computer based source really competes with a dedicated cd player and a dedicated external DAC, of course with the idea of possibly replacing my beloved CD3 with a computer based source.

Music was ripped onto HD using either Windows Media Player 11 or the iTunes. File format is WAV.
The results were pretty much what I expected but not what I hoped for.

1) Transporter on its own proved pretty good but far from the level of ARC player. Any aspect of the sound of Transporter is below the bar set by ARC CD3MkII. In comparison with a CD3, Transporter's bass lacks in definition, force and dynamic impact. Midrange is not as vibrant and rich. High frequencies are not as clearly defined, soundstage is more compressed. Overall sound was a bit artificial in comparison to the cd player. Also, one of the weak ponts of a Transporter is its noise floor. It isn't horrible at all, but when switched to CD3 the noise level of the Transporter becomes apparent. It was pretty easy to discern within seconds between the CD3MkII and the Transporter by switching inputs on my LS-25 pre. Transporter wins by convenience but not by performance when compared to an ARC player, although it is not at all bad and not offensive as far as long listening sessions. Convenience is unbeatable though. Thumbs up for that.

2) Transporter into Bel Canto DAC3 using Acoustic Zen MC2 digital cable. Now this was an improvement over the Transporter's internal DACs. With the Shunyata Python VX on the Transporter and Audience powerChord on DAC3 the sound became fuller, more natural and some of the issues, such as lower bass definition, went away to a degree. However, the upper bass still sounded thin and without proper attack. Drums, bass and lower notes on the piano were still lacking a bit. It did come a bit closer to the performance of a dedicated cd player, but still not in the same league. Overall this combination had more natural sound, better expanded soundstage and better overall definition and detail retrieval.

I just had to try the CD3MkII purely as a transport into the DAC3. The goal was to determine whether or not the Slim Devices Transporter is as capable of a transport as a CD3MkII.
It was immediately apparent that the CD3MkII is an excellent transport. When switching preamp inputs between the CD3MkII and DAC3(note that same XLR interconnects were used), aside from a bit lower output level of DAC3, the sound of the 2 units was exceptionally similar. On some material I had a difficult time picking the unit that was playing. It says a lot about DAC3's performance. The fact that the balanced output of 4.5v of DAC3 was slightly lower than the 5.4v output of CD3, it didn't seem to impact the performance of the DAC. On non-critical material such as rock music, it was tough to pick the CD3 out of the 2 units playing. However, on good classical recordings CD3 had just a bit better separation and definition than the DAC3, but I had to really strain to hear this difference.

Interestingly, the DAC3 is quiet capable as a preamp as well. No, it does not match the soundstage size, sweetness and natural sound of the ARC LS-25 tube preamp, but I didn't expect that it would. It is very listenable and if all I was listening to is rock music, it would be enough as a minimalist approach just to run a decent transport into DAC3 and balanced outs to the amp. 100-step volume control is really good on the DAC3 as well. It is smooth and provides for a very fine adjustment.

Overall it was pretty much a tie between the CD3MkII and DAC3 driven by a cd player.
I am impressed with the performance of Bel Canto DAC3 and can highly recommend it.
Sadly enough the Transporter fell short, which is something I expected, but was hoping it wouldn't be the case.

Based on what I heard in my system, with the source components mentioned, this proves to me that at least now, today, the Transporter is not at the level where it would be able to compete with dedicated CD players. Granted, ARC CD3MkII is almost 3 times the price of the Transporter. At this point I'm not ready to sacrifice sound for convenience so I am hanging on to my cd player.
Of course, these results could be system/room/components related and YMMV, but I decided to share my findings anyway.

I hope this may be of some help to someone researching the possibility of a computer based source as a replacement for a dedicated cd player.

Audphile1
Very nice test and description of results. Thanks for posting! I am 100% into server based system now and am looking to get a nice new DAC; the DAC3 seems pretty awesome across the board to nearly keep up with the vaunted ARC CD3MKII.