How good is the Philips 963SA as CD transport?


I hear this unit has a dual laser pickup unlike most other multiformat players, but I'm not sure if the bits that come out of the digital out is good as the high end Sony player/transports. Anybody ever compare it to other higher quality transports out there?
dracule1
While some may have a hard time believing this, but the sonic characteristics of these units that one hears when running the unit as a full-blown player are pretty much carried over to what one hears when used as a transport. That is, a very "round" yet "musical" presentation. I thought there was a very good sense of prat but it was lacking in speed, detail, separation of instruments and top end extension. My Brother and i came to the same conclusions about this in two different systems. If one has a very "clinical" and / or bright & lean sounding system and wants to add a noticeable amount of warmth and "musicality" to it, this might be a viable candidate as a transport or player. Sean
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I personally have one but find it somewhat compressed sounding for my liking..... that said, I'll be using it this weekend as I could care less if it gets trashed in the approaching hurricane! My DV-50....Id be upset about!
Kenny: I could see how you could arrive at that conclusion. These units lack certain qualities i.e. they aren't very "open" or "airy". As such, the sound & presentation is not as "expansive" for these reasons, hence a logical descriptive term would appear to be "compressed". Sean
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Ditto on the above. I have one of these and I have a Naim CDP. No comparison. PHillips is lacking in all areas, dull, boring, no detail, no dimension, no soundstage......Naim will spoil some of the best cdp's.
I'm not sure if the latter few responses are inregards to this as a CDP or as a transport, which I think the original question was regarding its capabilities as a transport.