Anyone know much about the Theta Jade transport?

headrott

I am looking into buying a Theta Jade transport and am wondering if anyone has owned one and could tell me about it? Anyone know of a place that will service the Jade or Theta transports in general as I have read that Theta will not service older models such as the Jade. Please give me you experiences with the Theta Jade or Theta in general. I have a picture of the actual unit below.

Greg

headrott

Since no one has (said anything about) any experience with the Theta Jade transport, I thought I would do a review after I listen to it. It arrived yesterday, and I just finished putting dynamat inside of it, and cleaning the connections with Deoxit. I will warm up the equipment and give a listen in a little while. I will then post a "review" here, just in case someone else might be interested in a Theta transport.

Greg

pietro944

headrott wrote: »

Since no one has (said anything about) any experience with the Theta Jade transport, I thought I would do a review after I listen to it. It arrived yesterday, and I just finished putting dynamat inside of it, and cleaning the connections with Deoxit. I will warm up the equipment and give a listen in a little while. I will then post a "review" here, just in case someone else might be interested in a Theta transport.

Greg

We're out here,greg......Theta's a great name in audio,will be interested in hearing your impressions.....peter

headrott

Theta is indeed a great name in audio Peter.

Here is the equipment I am using:

Source: Theta Jade transport!! Connected to the DAC with my own built coaxial digital cable made with VHAudio Pulsar Ag wire and WBT Nextgen 152Ag RCA plugs and Shunyata Copperhead AC cable
DAC: My own built DAC found here with 4 1959 Mullard long plate 12AX7's and connected with a Tara Labs Prism Special AC cable
Pre-Amp: BAT VK-3i with 2 1961 Bendix 5992 tubes and 4 1964 Amperex 7308 tubes connected to the DAC with some MIT Shotgun S3 balanced cables and my own made power cable using Neotech NEP-3002 wire and Wattgate 330i Ag male and Neotech gold female connectors
Amp: Aragon 8008bb connected to the pre-amp with MIT Shotgun S3 balanced cables and powered with a VHAudio flavor 4 power cable
Speakers: fully modified Polk Audio 2.3TL's with Clarity Cap/Duelund crossovers and connected to the amp with MIT Shotgun S3 speaker cables
Associated Gear: my own built AI-1 cable per DK's instructions, Equi-tech balanced power

I have listened to the Jade transport for a couple nights now (for a total of 6 hours, 3 per night) to make sure I got a better idea of the audio the Jade puts out. As I stated earlier, I installed some dynamat inside the Jade to dampen the chassis even though the Jade uses the Pioneer stable platter mechanism and is relatively resistant to vibrations. It was not too much of a task to remember to insert the CD upside down; this was the first CD player/transport I have owned that has this requirement. So far I have not put the CD in "normally" (label side up) so that's a sign that it doesn't take too much effort to break the habit of instering the disc label side up.

After I had insterted Madonna's "Something To Remember" CD into the Jade, I cued up song 12 which is "Rain". This song is recorded well with great clarity, extended highs and lows, but with a little more "forward" sound. I wanted to see how "in your face" the Jade is compared to the previous player I was using which was the Denon DVD-5910 universal player. The Denon was a good transport, but seemed to have a somewhat hard edge to it on the midrange and high end (especially). Don't get me wrong, it was not harsh but was not the smoothest and easiest digital sound out there. When I started the Madonna song in the Jade, I first noticed how smooth the audio was. The high end was not rolled off, but the bass, midrange, and highs all had a very analog sound to them. It was the most analog, digital I've ever heard. To add to the positive experience, the bass was much more present compared to my Denon DVD-5910. I have read reviews saying that the Jade is "somewhat" lacking bass, and granted this is compared to the Theta Data Basic II, which I have not heard but the bass was outstanding to my ears. It was not overdone (bloated), but obviously present. The highs are extended, but not at all harsh. IMO, they are perfect. The midrange is very full and if any of the frequencies are exaggerated, it would be the midrange.If they are exaggerated, it is very very slightly. The dynamics are about on par with my Denon DVD-5910. Which is to say, they are good. I am not sure if they could be better or not honestly. The dynamics are the best I have personally heard though. The part of "Rain" about 2/3 of the way through the song when it sounds like the sun rising....and Madonna sings "Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say....Never go away" I felt like I was going to be blown through my couch. It is powerful!

That leads me to the soundstage. It is deep, very wide, very high/low and very very 3 dimentional. I gained about another 1 to 2 feet outside the speakers for width. Imaging is very precise and voices and instruments are much more pinpoint and distinctly separated than with the Denon DVD-5910.

The audio coming from the Jade is also transparent. More so than the Denon is for certain. The tone of the transport is somewhat warm, but certainly not too warm. I would like to say it is very analog sounding. Detail from the Jade is though the roof as well. I could hear things from CD's I had not heard before. Not just Madonna's "Rain" but songs like the Beatles' "It's All Too Much" from Yellow Submarine which I have heard so many time I cannot count the number. Also a note about detail, the detail amount is extremely high but the Jade is not even close to sounding sterile. The Jade is still extremely musically involving. I would say very close to perfect.

After hearing the Jade (costing $2,495 new) compared to the Denon DVD-5910 (costing $3,295 new) I now know what a difference a dedicated transport can make in ones system. I also though to myself while listening to everything I had not heard before that you don't know what you are missing until you discover it. I discovered many things while listening to the Jade. One of them being what else am I missing from the music because of other components? My system is by no means ultra high end, but it is a decent system. If I keep going "up", what else will I find, musically?

Final thought is if you are looking for a transport to hook up to you DAC, without a doubt you should listen to the Jade. It is a phenominal transport and if you can find one for around $800.00 is easily worth the money, IMO. I hope this helps people looking for a good transport.

Greg

Edit: I also bought an AES/EBU Cerious digital cable I asked about in another thread. It will be interesting to hear the differences between my self made cable and this Cerious cable using Xhadow XLR ends, ground breaking synthetic ceramic liquid soaked microfibers for the 2 conductors (hot and neutral), and a pure silver ground.