BEST CD TRANSPORT

@willywonka : unless switched to up sampling (172/24 or 4x), which everyone would do with these units. Including myself.

Copy / paste :

I don’t know what effect this dither will have on the performance of D/A processors that are connected to the Jay’s CDT3-MK3, but it will limit the effective resolution of CDs played with the transport to closer to 15 bits rather than the 16 available on disc. By contrast, the upsampled output is bit-perfect with 16-bit CD data. Both types of output offer low jitter and well-resolved eye patterns, coupled with excellent error correction.—John Atkinson

Here’s an interesting CD transport story. I purchased a Wadia 270 transport in 1999. A year or two later I had it upgraded by Steve Huntley at Great Northern Sound. While he was in there he replaced the transport mechanism with a new transport from a Wadia 270SE which he had on hand. I was there in person when he made the swap.

Remarkably this transport continues to read CDs but now the CD drawer occasionally fails to open. Only problem I’ve had with this transport. I believe these transport mechanisms were made by TEAC.

This a remarkable record for any CD transport. Built like a virtual tank and always sounds excellent. Actually contemplating repair if possible.

Was originally paired with a Wadia 27i DAC which is long gone.

PS: Great Northern replaced a lot of caps with Black Gate electrolytics. At this age do you think they should be checked?

The beauty of the manual loading trays is that they don't wear out. The internal mechanism guiding the laser will though. Probably the optical unit itself will wear out first though. I would advise anyone just now buying a unit to purchase extra optical units. They can be found on Ebay and such, and there are Youtube videos showing how to replace.

By the way, I am not suggesting that these Transports and DACs in the $5,000.00 range are equal in quality or performance to the units costing 2-5 times more.

Where can I get a brand new Pro-Ject RS2 transport? It seems like no one has one in stock…

It appears that TEAC has recently released the VRDS 701TB CD Transport. The US MSRP is  ~$2700. Has anyone heard this TEAC transport? I'm interested in how this compares sonically to the Jays Audio CDT2 Mk3, and the CEC TL5.