Jay’s Audio CD Transport

Go with the CEC-TL5......

I have the CD3 Mk3 in black and the finish is first rate. I would describe the color as a deep navy blue, almost black. I have other black components that are more of a charcoal black. As mentioned above, the drawer is a pleasure to use and the fit and finish are excellent.

I also have a Teac VRDS 701T transport and I'll take this opportunity to give a brief review of both. I'm running two DACs - a Berkeley Alpha Reference MK II MQA and an Audio Mirror Tubadour IV.

The CD3 has several outputs including I2S which is a nice feature. I have it hooked up to my Berkeley with the AES output and I use the I2S output for the Tubadour. The Teac only has a Coax output so it is more limited if you are running more than one DAC.

The CD3 upsamples 4X (176) which allows your DAC to use a better filter. I run it at the upsampled rate all the time. If you don't use oversampling the CD3 uses dither which obscures the first bit of resolution. This would be fine except that it won't decode an HDCD. I collect HDCDs (I have over 100) and this format is one of the main reasons I bought the Berkeley.

The TEAC will pass the full 16 bit signal at no oversampling so it will allow the Berkelty DAC to decode HDCDs. It will also handle MQA CDs which the Berkeley will also decode. I've bought about a dozen MQA CDs and in some cases they are clearly better than their standard counterparts and in other cases I can't hear much of a difference.

Both transports are a pleasure to use and I expect them to last forever. Replacement drives are available for both but I doubt I'll ever need one. Regarding sound quality, I wish I could say that one is clearly better than the other but I doubt I could tell them apart in a blind test. My digital rig has made it to the endgame stage and everytime I play a well recorded CD I marvel at the sound.

The two DACs have more of an identifyable character than the transports. They are very close and one does not sound clearly better than the other but they are a little different. If I had to only have only one I would keep the Berkeley but I like having both to mess around with.

I bought the CD3 to replace a PSA PerfectWave transport which was a piece of junk. They used the cheapest $15 computer grade drive they could find in a $4000 transport! It felt cheap and I stressed out every time I used it because I was afraid it wouldn't work. I went through 3 drives until PSA wouldn't support the unit anymore. I mention this because the Jay's audio and the TEAC are magnitudes higher quality than the PSA unit for similar or less money.

@baylinor  Thank you for your reply!  I’m very excited to hear that yours has been trouble free and that you’ve been enjoying it so much!  I bought Acoustic Zen’s top coax cable the copper foil Absolute 75ohm 1.5 meter.   I use the AZ Absolute cables throughout my system and have really enjoyed what they do, so I’m hoping the digital coax will be great as well 😊

Thank you for sharing your experiences with me 👍  It helps push me in the Jay’s direction.

Best wishes,

Don

@jackd  Thank you for your reply!  It’s great to hear that you love both of the Jay’s transports even though you feel the CDT3 is better. 
 

Would you be able to share with us what you like better sonically about the CDT3 over the CDT2?  
 

Thank you for sharing your experiences with me!

Best wishes,

Don

@iflyhd Thank you for your reply!   It’s awesome to hear that you feel the black finish is great!   I think I will also choose the black as well.  
 

You had mentioned that even though the I2S works great, you actually prefer the aes output.  I’m curious if you had an opportunity to try the coax output?

Do you think that the quality of the cable is possibly more important than the actual digital output being used?  I’m just wondering 🤔 

Thanks again for sharing your experiences with me!

Best wishes,

Don