Do all CD transports sound the same?

mikeyb128

Here lies my question... kind of a newb one at that. If I were to use a CD player as a transport only, going into my dac, would I get varying results with different transports?

I ask because, my shanling has developed a bit of an issue with random skipping, and seems to get "lost" at the end of cds when skipping tracks. I'm guessing it needs a new transport, which I can get from Japan. I will fix it because it's such a nice sounding smooth unit, but in an unknown time frame.

But....

I've been doing some thinking. Get a nice CD player with on board DAC (ex. marantz SA11S3?) Or pick up a nice transport to run into my existing DAC which is a pretty dam good one (ex. a sim audio moon neo 260D).

I need a player on the warm side, and these seem to fit the bill. I'm almost scared to go away from my tube CD player. But I'm also happy to try something new.

Nightfall

Have you considered going digital? Rip your CD's on your PC and put the files on a hard drive, choose anything you want to play from your listening chair.

Skip has a couple AURALiC Aries Mini's on hand still. $450 I think with 3 months of Tidal. Can play all high res FLAC, Tidal, DSD even. Of course the only digital player I can compare it to is the Oppo I've been using but I have to say it blows the Oppo out of the water. Where the Oppo is a bit bright, forward, and analytical the Aries Mini is comparatively very warm and musical. Even playing 16/44 FLAC streams from Tidal sounds better than 192/24 high res FLAC on the Oppo.

BlueFox

From what I have read the answer is that used solely as digital transport to a DAC then yes they can sound different. I guess they are still available, but you could buy CD transports around $50K, and they are supposed to sound great, especially compared to low end transports.

mikeyb128

Nightfall wrote: »

Have you considered going digital? Rip your CD's on your PC and put the files on a hard drive, choose anything you want to play from your listening chair.

Skip has a couple AURALiC Aries Mini's on hand still. $450 I think with 3 months of Tidal. Can play all high res FLAC, Tidal, DSD even. Of course the only digital player I can compare it to is the Oppo I've been using but I have to say it blows the Oppo out of the water. Where the Oppo is a bit bright, forward, and analytical the Aries Mini is comparatively very warm and musical. Even playing 16/44 FLAC streams from Tidal sounds better than 192/24 high res FLAC on the Oppo.

This has crossed my mind. I already have a very capable and great sounding dac as it is. Also using tidal which sounds very good.

I have this annoying knack for buying music. I enjoy physical media. I use tidal as a source to find new music, then buy it on CD for cheap. Have quite a nice collection of vinyl as well.

F1nut

There was a huge thread about this subject matter on another forum recently. Lots of opinions, of course. The guys in the know (IMO) agreed that transports do sound different.

Mike, have you cleaned the lens on the optical pickup?

tonyb

Sure they sound different, not so sure about transports under 2k though. If you have a tubed cdp now and your using an outboard dac, your bypassing the main part of that tube circuit in my view anyway.

If you like the warmth of tubes, move to a tubed pre amp so all your sources can benefit. Other than that, I think there will be a Jolida 100 cdp up for sale soon, a stellar redbook player.

honestaquarian

Transports under 2k can still be heard to sound different. I've had multiple non audiophiles over who heard a difference between an Oppo BDP-103 Blu-ray player and a Pioneer Elite DVL-91 Laserdisc player. Both used as transports playing CD's.
Also other not expensive players were heard to sound different when used as transports.

[Deleted User]

unless I'm missing something again and IIRC a lot of the
transport mechanisms were made by two or three companies. (low end)
It is what you do w/ them that counts. So even reading the X's and O's
could be different using it purely as a transport into the DAC.

mhardy6647

No, they don't all sound the same -- and I don't understand why (being, by and large, an analog kind of guy). I'll skip the back story, but I was (very) surprised to find that, for whatever reason, the transport of a cheap, dump-find Denon DVD player I have sounds better through my (fair quality) DAC than does my old (but fairly good) Marantz single-disc CD player's transport.

I wasn't expecting that.

tonyb

Like anything I guess, build quality in transports comes into play, as I would assume the laser pickups. Though to be honest I've never heard anyone upgrading a laser pick up so not sure how much difference there is there.

Also to be fair, transports alone, you still have the build quality of the digital circuits and in cdp's the analog output stage. To circle back to a forum motto....everything matters.

mikeyb128

F1nut wrote: »

Mike, have you cleaned the lens on the optical pickup?

I have cleaned the lens.

tonyb wrote: »

Sure they sound different, not so sure about transports under 2k though. If you have a tubed cdp now and your using an outboard dac, your bypassing the main part of that tube circuit in my view anyway.

If you like the warmth of tubes, move to a tubed pre amp so all your sources can benefit. Other than that, I think there will be a Jolida 100 cdp up for sale soon, a stellar redbook player.

I have a Cary tube preamp. And my tube CD player (shanling) is connected right to my preamp.
The dac is used for tidal and computer USB only. Except that my 8 year old mac book pro is toast, so only using tidal at the moment.

lightman1

No. But all amplifiers do. Go figure.

mhardy6647

lightman1 wrote: »

No. But all amplifiers do. Go figure.

And here I thought Julian Hirsch was dead!



You just need to use some tone controls, ol' son. Maybe a nice equalizer. Some flashing lights. That'll do the trick.

mikeyb128

^^ you had me at flashing lights!

erniejade

A while back I think I might have had a thread on this. I used a denon ... I cant remember the model but, it did sacd\dvd universal player, jolida, and Pioneer D9 and hooked them up coax out to my old W4s Dac2. I could hear a difference between all 3 using them as a transport. If memory serves me right, the denon lost and the jolida won but, it was close between the jolida transport and the pioneer.

mikeyb128

Took a stroll down to absolute audio, these guys are going to lend me a bryston bcd-3, a sim audio moon neo 260D (with built in DAC), and a marantz SA8005. It will be interesting that's for sure. I will try all players internal DAC vs coaxial to my benchmark DAC. The benchmark uses 4 ESS Sabre 9018 chips per channel in a fully balanced configuration, which is what I will be using.

Of course I will only get one player at a time, my research is showing the moon to be an absolute killer performer. If the bryston is going to be as clean and detailed as they say, then it won't make my cut, I don't need more detail than what my system already provides.

mhardy6647

nbrowser wrote: »

Yes, transports sound different. The clunks, whirrs and motor sounds are unique to all transports. Hope this helps!

Well -- that puts me to mind of the late, great John Hartford's classic song, Washing Machine:

https://youtu.be/6qYpnPzpewk

man-o-man, what drugs were they takin' in those days?

Here's the canonical version, for completeness:

https://youtu.be/ZWGm2CmcL44

mrbigbluelight

Tom Hanson dancers ?

mhardy6647

I dunno -- but Perry Como & Jimmy Durante

Nearly as whacked-out as Bowie & Der Bingle.