@wharfy - fwiw, I heard the least cost CEC in my system and it made involving sweet music but not quite enough air, space and detail for me to keep. The more expensive models would probably be worth a listen.
Resolving CD Transports Crowd Sourcing
Hi everyone! A couple of years ago I purchased my endgame CD transport- a Pro-Ject CD Box RS2T. Loved almost everything about the unit--highly resolving presentation, dead quiet background, balanced placement of instruments in a believable 3 dimensional soundstage, and the synergy it had with my components. In fact I loved the transport so much I had two of them because Pro-Ject quality control and customer service is the pits. After almost a year of hassles, I'm swearing of Pro-Ject.
I'm in the market for a replacement CD transport that has the same qualities of the Pro-Ject minus the quality issues and customer service.
PS Audio, Jay's Audio, CEC, Audio Research (which are CD/DAC units) come up in my search. What are your thoughts? With all the bells and whistles the Pro-Ject was around $3300, so that gives you an idea of my budget, though I could go higher.
Thanks in advance!
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I own the CEC TL5......I bought it because they are top loaders ( no more probs with front loaders) and they are BELT DRIVEN , just like a turntable.....getting rid of the direct drive vibration and rumble is paramount to extracting the purity of the music and playing it in a most natural way. I love it and the Japanese quality in top notch. |
David, Audiogon member @wig owned the CDT2 MK II and MK III as well as the RS2T. I’d contact him via this site’s email. He is insightful and knowledgeable. Charles |
OP, The Teac does look like a really good unit, but I’ve never heard it. I have auditioned the Jay’s CDT2 MkIII both in a friends system, and in mine. It is without a doubt the best CD transport I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. Very detailed, yet not at all bright or fatiguing. In my system it was paired with a Tubes4HiFi VTA St-120 tube amp, and a Denafrips stack which leans toward a more relaxed slightly warmer sound. The extra detail was a welcome addition to both combos, and a great pairing. I decided to put off my purchase of the Jay’s unit, and stick with my Audiolab CDT6000 for now (a great inexpensive transport), so I could upgrade my streaming rig…..going forwards I see myself streaming more than adding to my CD collection. Best of luck |
I bought a Jay's CD3 Mk III a few months ago and I highly recommend it. It's massively well built and a pleasure to use. I have compared it to my Marantz KI Ruby SACD player's transport into my Berkeley Alpha Reference 2 DAC and I can't hear much difference. They both sound great. I think I can hear a slight improvement in soundstage when I use the 4X oversampling but it's very subtle. I've got a Teac 701 on order from Music Direct. They show it as on backorder but I believe that Teac is not yet shipping this unit and I don't know when it will be available. Why would I want a Teac transport as well as the Jay's audio? It turns out that the CD3 has a characteristic that is a downside for my situation. I collect HDCDs (the Alpha DAC decodes them) but the CD3 doesn't play them. It apparently uses dither on the first bit where the HDCD instructions are encoded. If you read the Stereophile review they note that the transport uses dither which is unusual. When you turn on the 4X oversampling it uses all the bits but that doesn't work for HDCD. |
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