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Do Transports Matter???

I borrowed an outboard D/A from a friend to try in my system. My intent was to hook the analog outs on my CDP to one input on my preamp and the analog outs of the DAC to another input so I could a/b my player with and without the DAC. However something is wrong with the digital out on my player because I couldn't lock a siginal with the DAC. So I grabbed my pioneer DVD Player and hooked it up as a transport. Everything sounds awesome, made a big difference in my system(won't go into details). The outboard also puts the DVD players onboard DAC to shame(well duh). But this of course also made me wonder if using a different transport(my cdp if it worked)would make any difference?? In reality the DVD player is reading the CD and sending 0s and 1s to the DAC where its reclocked anyway. I know that sometimes little things make a difference, even though on paper they shouldn't. Being this is my first expirence with an outboard DAC, I am just curious if what you use as a transport makes any difference
brianvoelz
redbeard
14 posts
 
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.
jsawhitlock
302 posts
 
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!
kthomas
911 posts
 
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.....
david_d
83 posts
 
Hi Brian!

After all these posts there's not much left for me to say. But IMO Transports play a great role in the digital chain, sometimes even bigger then DACs. And power Cords do make a difference too.
Cheers!

And Bye,Bye Redbeard...
redbeard
14 posts
 
It is normal for people to believe their senses instead of science. After all, there is a lot of historical precedent along these lines. I can imagine the frustration that Aristotle must have felt, after realizing the world was round, as he tried to explain to people that ships only appeared to fall off the edge of the earth as they went out to sea. People believed what they saw rather than science, which they didn’t understand.

The situation that we have been discussing here isn’t much different. We have a group of people who do not understand the science and technology behind digital electronics. They believe their senses, and rather than trying to understand the underlying cause and effect relationships that are responsible for their perceptions, and they prefer to believe in magical and mystical solutions that can not be explained through science.

The technology involved in Redbook recoding techniques is over 20 years old. Today, technology has advanced to the point where CDP technology is literally child’s play in the engineering community. To put it into perspective, in 1982 they were putting 5MB into a 5.25” HDD with 5 platters. Today, they are putting 80GB onto a single 3.5” platter. This is an 80,000+ fold increase in aerial density. Believe me, this wasn’t achieved by relying on mystical effects that we don’t understand. It was based on hard work by scientists and engineers in multiple disciplines. Technology, and our understanding of it, march on. So when someone tells me that there are unexplainable forces at work in the digital end of a CDP, I can’t help but laugh my head off.

There are market forces at work here as well. There is a lucrative cottage industry that supplies the audiophile community with nonsensical accessories. Many segments of this industry would dry up if the audiophile community became aware of the true cause and effect relationships at work in their systems. It is in the interests of these merchants to keep the community ignorant, and believe me, they do their best to muddy the waters.
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