CD Transports a relic or a good option? Aune/AN

They are a good option to have even if you mainly use computer audio. A good transport, e.g., CEC TL-1X, with a good digital cable, will give a warmer, more natural and realistic sound to the music, as opposed to the cold sterile sound produced by much computer audio, especially with USB connections. One man's opinion.

Neal

DVD players have inherent ability of decoding MP3 but play standard CD as it is - without compression. They offer pretty good tracking but got bad rap for sound because their analog output stage was often pretty bad.

Digital cables can add substantial amount of jitter (translates to noise in frequency domain) by reflections (on characteristic impedance boundaries) or by system noise that affects edge transition. High quality transport can often be a curse when they have coax output slew rate in order of few nanoseconds instead of typical 25ns found in common CDPs. Such fast transitions require very careful cable impedance matching. On the other hand fast transition is less susceptible to system noise providing better timing (lower jitter). Optical cable, often much worse when system has noise affecting either transport or DAC but can be a blessing in the system that has ground loops.

Why not just get an AMR CD-77? I plan on buying a reference CD player in
the next 2-3 months. I am also planning on adding a server transport next
year, and plan to use my cdp as dac for the forseeable future. Servers by
and large are not set up for casual playback of cds. And if friends come
over for a get together, it's good to have a cd player to spin discs, if only for
old times sake. My view may change at some point, but that is too far off to
care.

Thanks for the information and suggestions! I picked up an Audio Note One transport....although I still have some thoughts that the Aune/Hifidiy CDPro2 may be better.

@Cable Designer-I have many after market cables and will be using the Stealth Varidig or RAL from the transport to the AMR DP777SE.

@NGlazer-I hear you. I actually picked up a Lessloss Ref for my DAC to be and a Sig for my transport based on your posts. My new server is the MusicVault Diamond with direct studio connects to AES/BSU. Should sound pretty good, but it will be another couple of months before I'll be able to tell. I'll post once I have it all in place, broken in and evaluated.

@Kijanki-That's some serious tech talk a little beyond my ken. I will listen closely though and am thinking my new set up will pay attention to those measurements between which I can hear a difference. The MusicVault diamond obviates USB....on the other hand I have used the iFi cables and iUSB with good sonic success in the past.

@Melbguy1-I had the CD77.1. It is by far the best player I have ever heard. The USB DAC onboard was also phenomenal. My machine was wrecked in transport back from the distributor after repairs and I am waiting on the DP777SE's release as its replacement. I was looking at the EAR Acute III as a one box replacement....it's a long story, but suffice it to say that if I could afford another CD77.1, I would buy it in a second.
Look at the Music Vault for a server. If you are using the CD77 as a DAC, you won't need the diamond as it's upgrade in in the AES/BSU connectivity.
On the other hand, I have a Mojo Audio modded MacMini that is pretty great for USB with the iFi USB system that I will be parting with in the next month or so....

Hard luck on the loss of your old CD-77.1 Bud. Yeah i've heard that is a musical sounding player. The EAR Acute III is similarly well regarded as a musical sounding valve spinner. I was seriously considering buying one as my temporary player at one stage, but ended up being offered a 6 month old Aesthetix Romulus instead. Sounds like you've got a plan to achieve good sound notwithstanding.