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

@audphile1

In my opinion, I would not rely on this type of evaluation

Thanks for spelling out your thinking. I see your point about longer term listening. On the other hand, this was a test done by someone experienced in speaker design and recording and a group of others with a variety of expertise in audio and acoustic arts. Given the mettle of this group, I find it hard to believe they would participate in a sham experiment for entertainment purposes only, especially one where their names are mentioned and for all of this to be posted on a fairly popular YouTube channel. (It has 94k views so far.) I’m more inclined to think that both you and they have made observations relevant to the question, Do transports make a difference?

@vthokie83 Interesting that you find differences but that they’re not enough in your resolving system to spend up for a Jay’s. That does confirm if not the lack of difference in the YouTube experiment, at least the proposition that there is not that much to gain by a better transport. I see others here differ, and that’s fine, of course.

@pwerahera

Most modern DACs have good reclocking mechanisms and other methods to reduce playback jitter. Any transport can provide the digital signal with varying degree of jitter. So the issue is, if you have a good DAC, then why would the transport matter? Because DAC should be able to buffer the incoming digital signal from any transport and convert into an analog signal based on its own clock and analog filters. Now one can argue about different DACs and their implementations. However, different CD transports should not impact the digital signal or its quality. [my emphasis]

This is the explanation I got from a local audiophile friend whose expertise is in telecommunications and computing. It would fit with the experimental listening results which Mr. Lovegrove obtained.

It often gets lost in these threads, but I posted the Youtube video to generate discussion, not because I agreed with it. Thank you, folks, for the discussion.

With my GREAT (top flight, best ever) sounding office system (considered junk level for most here) where I rotate through lots of equipment and do my casual listening, I finally connected my office laptop to the receiver. Then did a simple comparison:

A) laptop, ripped CD (FLAC), 25 ft cheapest USB C to Shiit DAC, DAC expansive ($15 RCA to receiver.

B) Panasonic using above CD, same RCA to receiver

What blew my mind (initially): the laptop sounded SO MUCH (not even close) better. Granted, my fancy system (no component was more than $500, all used) is very revealing, still the difference was astonishing. The laptop just sounded so much more ALIVE, staging was a lot better. 

Further rethinking made it obvious: I was comparing a great (Shiit) and modern/new DAC with a really shitty, cheap and decades old (build into the lowly Panasonic CD) DCA. 

I am still a big believer that the ANALOG portion of any music chain is having by far the greatest impact (room, speakers, DAC, amps). 

@hilde45  A few of us have mentioned that there is an improvement moving from the Cambridge CXC transport, which incidentally you have. Do you know anyone who is relatively nearby you who has a Jay’s, Simaudio, or Project CD transport , or a dealer who can let you test out a CD transport that is beyond the Cambridge? A firsthand assessment in your system would be much better to draw a conclusion from for yourself then cherry picking the comments in the thread that allow you to confirm the video narrative that you bought into. Also, it’s somewhat interesting that you ignore the fact that a DAC designer states that transports impact DAC’s but go with the non-direct knowledge of a friend who is in telecommunications since it "confirms" what you wanted to believe.

@hilde45

It’s interesting that the listening panel could detect differences between the players but couldn’t do so when they were connected to the same DAC via SPDIF. Personally, I wouldn’t mind having the same listening panel try to determine if there are differences between transports, but it seems to me that Mr. Lovegrove found it somewhat obvious that there aren’t and I agree with his conclusion.

@facten 

A firsthand assessment in your system would be much better to draw a conclusion from for yourself then [sic] cherry picking the comments in the thread that allow you to confirm the video narrative that you bought into. 

I didn't "buy into" the video narrative. I presented it as something which seems worth discussing. You've phrased my position here tendentiously. 

And a test in my system with a local CD transport to compare with my CXC would be interesting, but I would need someone to help create blind conditions and make sure the voltage outputs and dB levels were equal to make it more valuable. That's something the "video narrative" did, and described the procedures pretty well.