CD TRANSPORT THAT MAKES AN AUDIBLE DIFFERENCE

+1 charles1dad

The Jay's CDT2 is great, but the CDT3 is proving to be one of the best sources available at any price, actually. Hard to believe with Redbook CD but it's true. I think it must be the CLK system mostly, which occupies the whole right third of the unit basically. If you're very serious about audio it's definitely worth it.

A high end friend in the DFW area has been trying to beat his CDT3 with various expensive streamers (eg Naim, Rockna, ..) but has been unable to so far.

And I went to audition some Focal a few months back and had a hunch by now that I'd need to bring my own CDT3 to be able to hear what the speakers could really do. That hunch was entirely correct. The shop guy was stunned by the magnitude of improvement vs their streaming setup.

True stories.

TK TEKAudioSpecialties.com

The newer Jay's Audio CDT3 MK3 now has a toggle switch on the back that activates 4X upsampling of redbook CD's. This is a much more sound way to activate 4X than it was on previous versions. I was skeptical of such upsampling, but the newer iteration of this procedure is easier to "find," and I have fallen in love with 4X even though I have been told this is mostly a "dithering" strategy. Whatever - it sounds very good.

Yes, just be sure not to double upsample. For example, make sure your DAC isn't also upsampling. But 4x to an NOS DAC is a great method IME.

The CDT2 also upsamples, easy to engage via the remote. TK

And don't get me started, but 4x should have been the fundamental lowest sampling freq of CD and all digital audio. 44K/48K is the root of most digital evil actually..

However there were sound reasons why even 44K was a stretch back in the early 80's.. But unfortunately we're stuck with it now for legacy reasons. Kind of like being stuck with all the legacy related bugs in Windoze, while they make a pile of money regardless. But I digress..

For some great tech background information see: http://www.mother-of-tone.com/cd.htm And yes, he's spot on.

If all recording were sampled at say, 8x there's no reason to have upsampling DACs and such. If I ran the world that's how it would be ;)

TK