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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
usblues
1,217 posts
 
Stan Warren's mail address?For that Aiwa upgrade would be appreciated.Thanks,Bob
mwp7373
29 posts
 
I'm no expert, but based on what I've read, it seems that the digital output from a CD transport contains 3 signals: left, right, and clock. While the bit transfer of the left and right channels is essentially perfect, even with an inexpensive transport/player, the clock signal is "fragile" and subject to inducing jitter. I use a jitter filter, and plan to add an upsampling DAC in the near future. Presuming all 3 signals are corrected fully within a good quality digital filter (I use the Camelot Dragon 5.1,) it seems the weakest link might actually be the digital cable (which can throw off the clock signal) between the jitter filter and DAC. This leads to a problem, as jitter errors are so small (yet plainly audible) that nobody's figured out a means to test for them accurately. However, compared to interconnects and speaker cables of audiophile quality, even the most expensive (and presumably most stable) digital cables are priced reasonably. I'm going to try one of the higher priced digital cables, and compare it with the "standard-fare" digital cables I'm now using. I'll try to post my impressions here in the near future.
joe_b
421 posts
 
The Radio Shack cd player that Sam Tellig used is an unusual product (for Radio Shack and the price) that used a cd-rom drive and is no longer available. It is not indicative of "consumer grade" cd players as a transport but will not outperform a high end dedicated transport, either. The quality of the transport, jitter reduction device and cables all make a difference. Getting it right took me a lot of trial and error-buy nothing w/o a right of return is the best advice I can give. I have had digital cables sound very different in different systems and price does not always determine what works best. Also, read some of the other threads on this subject to learn more.
pondman
2 posts
 
I have a Pioneer DVD-414 mated to a Birdland O'deon Lite DAC
a great combination.
redkiwi
1,092 posts
 
I agree with Joe_b. You cannot get away with trying to dismiss the importance of any of the steps in the digital chain, and you cannot avoid trial and error if you want the best result.
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