Do Transports Matter???

I seem to have a very different experience than most here. Either my Pioneer PD65 as a transport is incredibly excellent or my Muse Model 8 transport is not all that good as I have swapped back and forth these many times and I am still not sure if a difference exists between them. Is it my poor hearing on this or were the Stereophile ratings A vs C truly nonsense in this case? Both of these with so many DACs bring on an excellent redbook CD presentation.

I have had many DACs here: Audio Alchemy, ARC DAC3 II, Counterpoint DAC10, Muse 296, Electrocompaniet ECD1 and now the incredibly awesome tubed Manley DAC....I own all but the ARC now. The differences between each of these is immediately apparent. In some cases it is extended bass that is quickly noticed or a more in-the-room vs back-of-the-room presentation, more energy on the top, etc. Perhaps I need to try the transport comparison again with the Manley DAC.

I just recently tried a MIT digital cable and yes, this indeed brought on a level of smoothness over the cheapo cable that was previously used. I did convince me that the timing issue is critical with cables. But even this was not a huge difference right away like the DACs. Perhaps a return to the previous cable would make me think otherwise.

And I have not played with power cord swapping yet but it sounds like everyone's claims on this will bring on yet a huge change too. I thought I'd play with a Genesis Lens for a month or so and then remove it to hear what it does or does not.

So if anyone has any ideas as to why so many other things make a far bigger difference than the transports mentioned, I'd love to hear it. And if anyone is interested in the differences in the above mentioned DACS, send me an email.

Thanks.

John

Mejames,

I'm afraid you are right. This forum may not be the right place to espouse science and engineering. Some people just don’t believe in such things.

If you look at my first post in this thread you will see the following sentence:

“If someone hears a difference when they change a transport or digital cable they should realize that what they are actually hearing is a byproduct of insufficient filtering and isolation IN THE DAC!!!!!!”

That statement, as well as the rest of that post is pure unadulterated fact. It is irrefutable.

Let me make that clear so there is no confusion. If there is insufficient isolation, filtering, or clock source in the DAC, then crud (jitter) present in the digital input could be coupled into the analog signal path. The common band-aid solution when this happens is to try to reduce that jitter by throwing money at the transport, transport power cable (what a laugh), digital cable, etc. instead of addressing the real problem, which is poor isolation, filtering or clock source in the DAC. THIS IS FACT!!!!!!!

I’m sorry if this doesn’t fit into your perception of reality.

You know, I half expect to hear someone say that they can hear a difference in the sound of a cd after rapidly shaking the cd before puting it into the CDP.

Transports, Power Cords and Digital cables are all importantant, It's a make it or break it in my opinion and most others will agree too. Let Redbreard think what he wants about power cords as it's are gain and his loss! Hey Redbeard, I think you need to stop reading white paper and pick your self up a $500 power cord and enjoy! No need to thank me Redbeard, as were just here to help.
Brian, Transports do make a huge sonic difference along with good power cords and digital cable, I think with all digital componets all three are a must if you want to create that synergy thing, again I think most will agree on this. Sorry for getting off track here.
Happy Listening!

Laugh if you want to, Redbeard, but if you've only tried shaking an original CD, it's no wonder you dismiss it as a tweak. When you're playing one of those highly-degraded, bit-perfect CDR copies of a commercial CD, shaking it hard before putting it in the player is essential to getting acceptable sound. And don't even get me started about how much difference it can make on second- and third-generation bit-perfect copies.....