CEC Belt Drive CD Transports vs Jay's Audio CD Transports

@no_regrets I'm a lousy test case- I used an Oppo briefly as a transport and my CD listening is probably 5% of what I hear- I usually only fire up a CD of something that is impossible to get on LP or is crazy expensive and use it as a basis to decide whether to spend on the LP.  

You are smart to ask questions of owners, though. Audio Union, the US distributor, has been solid. Fast turnaround, I replaced a belt, simply b/c I hadn't used the thing in a while. It was shipped fast. 

Ask me about private label jazz on LP and I could probably ramble on. But, here, that's all I got for you. Good luck. I know people respect Esoteric, high end TEAC, but my question is service. Is that an issue or time consuming?  I think it is important to have somebody knowledgeable on the ground where you are located. That's been my experience with a lot of gear. 

There are only a handful of good transports available today.   Hopefully any of the above mentioned will be reliable,  but none are really positioned to provide global support easily and cost effectively so you have to just go with your gut on this one. 

I went with the Teac because it has the VRDS drive and hopefully it proves to be reliable.   And I could see the product line in person.  Fingers crossed its reliable.... it's serial # 00001.  What could go wrong ?

I own the CEC TL5 and I am very pleased with it, but I have never compared it to any of the others. I made my decision based on the fact that it is a proven design with US service and not so big and heavy. The Jays Cd3 is 50 pounds. Not for me. Just as an aside, I looked at your system and you will have a tough time beating that CDS2/XPS. I had the CDX2/XPS2 and it was a great player. The CEC TL2 looks like a great player if you want to go the 6k.  You can add some type of external clock, which is supposed to improve it further. Bought mine from Atleleir 13 and I felt the service was very good. 

@whart Thank you for your reply!  I've been a vinyl guy for 50 years and love my analog rig and all my minty lp's.  However, I am noticing there is some great music that I am missing out on that I can't get on vinyl, hence the reason I am trying to step up the digital side of my system. Vinyl will still be my primary source though.

Do you think the CEC made gave you a big uptick in sound quality over the Oppo?

I agree, having service is huge!  The Jay's has a service center in Texas and it's nice to know CEC can be serviced in the US as well.

Thank you and best wishes,

Don

@rsf507 

@larsman 

@oddiofyl 

Thank you to all of you for your posts!  I agree with you.  I have read from many that as good as streaming can sound, even with a very expensive streamer, a top notch cd transport and dac will outperform the streamer sound wise.  Hard to beat the streamer for convenience though I would guess.

My goal is to optimize my CD playback first (within my limited budget) and then at some point maybe add a quality streamer for more or less background music at some point into the future.

Best wishes,

Don