New, Very Interesting CD Transport

CORRECTION - I've been calling the transport the "EC3" but it's actually called the ET3 not EC3.

In fact, I think Shanling makes a full CD Player with the EC3 name.

Sorry for the error.

Bits are bits and they should all sound the same - until they don't. Then we are left with a big "Hmmm." Just as people tell you that the quality of your streamer is at least as important as the quality of your DAC, (or at least should be on a commensurate price level), I think we can surmise that the quality of a device reading the data from a CD, and then passing that information to a DAC can be important as well. The Philips drive used in the Shanling seems to be a good one. 

I have a "decent" Denon CD player I picked up two years ago as a hedge against CD players "going away" and I'm happy with it, but I'd be interested in giving a dedicated transport a try. The words "audiophile" and "fool" shouldn't be close in definition. I can't believe so many people could be fooled. 

@creativepart dumb question to ask, but here in 2024, it can't be taken for granted:  Does the Shanling ET-3 CD transport play gaplessly? (i.e. no inserted 2 or 3 second pauses between tracks when there shouldn't be, such as on Dark Side of the Moon, other prog rock CDs, classical, jazz and such). Thanks!

Does the Shanling ET-3 CD transport play gaplessly?

I obviously does with my CDs, To be sure, I pulled out DSOM and it sounds great on the ET-3. No pauses inserted.

I haven't attempted to use the device as a streamer so I can only go by what others have said and as I recall they said it was gapless in all but one network format. I paid little to no attention to this, as I doubt I'd ever use this as a streamer. I bought this for it's CD playback and multitude of output choices exclusively.

A dumb question, how do you select, say track no, 12 out of 15 songs from the remote ?  Is a universal remote control with numeric keypad works with ET3?