If the DAC is the same, how different do CD transports sound?

Hey jasonbourne. I think the first consumer CD player was introduced by Sony in 1982. The CDP-101. I was in Germany at the time (in the US Army) and my buddy bought one at the post exchange. Also Philips (the co-developer of the CD player) introduced one as well. I actually bought the Hitachi brand, just like you did... but a little later.

Also I agree that if you find a quality integrated amp that can switch two digital sources and the listener does not know which one they are listening to, that might be a good way to test two players. I think any way you can do this with headphones might be an even better way to eliminate external noise.

The question the OP is posting is about the difference between various CD transports. Level matching does not come into play here. Neither is this a discussion in a difference between CD players.

@hilde45 - there’s a difference between CD transports. Higher end transports use better quality parts, better power supplies as well as better chassis and dampening. This results in improved sound quality.

That being said, the current under $1,000 “budget” transports like the Audiolab, Cambridge and Pro-Ject are really excellent. I checked out a few in my system and if streaming didn’t beat them, I’d definitely go for one of those.

As to A/B testing - quick A/B is never a good way to fully appreciate the differences, blind testing or not. Take your time with each component and trust your ears.

They should be very similar.   You've hit on a key point.  The main difference in the sound between CD players is the relatively cheap onboard DAC that each uses.  Eliminate the DAC and now you've eliminated most of the variance.

So it comes down to which CD transport drops the most bits and introduces the most jitter.   Good CD transports should do very little of either so it should be hard to tell them apart.

Jerry

@jasonbourne71 If you watch the video first, you won't need to say "Only a blind listening test to eliminate sighted bias and matched output voltage levels has any validity. Anything else is anecdotal!"

@audphile1

there’s a difference between CD transports. Higher end transports use better quality parts, better power supplies as well as better chassis and dampening. This results in improved sound quality.

That was my assumption going in. I think that was the assumption of Mr. Lovegrove. It was not borne out in this test. That’s interesting to me because it helps strengthens the argument for optimizing a CD-DAC combo by putting most of one's time, energy, and money into the DAC. This does not mean get a bad CD player. And this was a point I believe @jjss49 made on another thread, and now we have a video about this same topic.