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Upsampling/Advice on Transport

After reading Sam Tellig's piece in the Feb. stereophile, I've decided that I want to take the plunge into upsampling via the MSB Link DAC. Unfortunately, my current CD player (Sonic Frontiers SFCD-1) doesn't have digital outputs, and so I will need to get a transport. His article implies that the quality of the transport is virtually irrelevant (he even used a Radio Shack portable and got the same results), because part of his suggested system is a Monarchy Audio Digital Interface Processor, which acts as a jitter reducer. So here is my question: in order to get the best sound, do I need to spring for an expensive transport, or will any consumer-grade CD player with digital outputs do the trick. Opinions?
miguelk
snook2's avatar
snook2
626 posts
 
One of the best tranports is the Audiomeca Mephisto. I just replaced the Muse 8. Great air and detail.
zheka
1 posts
 
I have MSB DAC1. no upsampling, no mods. I've tried it with DVD players (pioneer525 and apex)and HK CDP as transports. One think that bothered me about DVDPs was mechanical noise from spinning CD (this is the case for all cheap DVD players). Soundwise all transports sounded differently. Pioneer sounds better then Apex. Generally, I'd say entry level CD players (upto $300 ) with digital output is a better choice for music reproduction.
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,597 posts
 
You have a very nice player. Were you panning it to finance the rest? If not having SF retro fit it seems like a good option. I had thought of going with some of the less expensive players to use as a transport such as the Aiwa mentioned but enjoy the solid build and reliability (never a problem) of my old CAL player, which I now use as a transport.
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,597 posts
 
"Were you planning on selling it to finance the rest?" - big typo.
miguelk OP
4 posts
 
Dekay: I was thinking of selling it, but I may keep the SFCD-1 for a second system. It's about $700 to have a digital output added, and frankly I've never had the sense that the transport on the SFCD-1 was anything special. Audio Advisor has a Parasound CDP1000 on sale for $249...I'm thinking that the transport in that unit is probably as good (or almost as good) as the SFCD-1. Any thoughts? Also, any sense as to whether using the MSB Link Dac III will give me sound that is superior to my SFCD-1? I've always liked the sound of the SFCD-1, but still find CD's played on it tiring on the ears compared to analog. I was hoping that the MSB unit would give me something closer to analog.
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