BEST CD TRANSPORT

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. 

Just keep in mind some really expensive transports (and DAC's) use junk wall-wort p-s and you will need to buy an extra box to get a real power supply.