CD transport importance.

[Phil Y]

Hello all,

What does anyone think about this?
Obviously (I assume) a better transport will sound better, but how much. All the attention seems to be on DACs but there rarely seems to be any discussion about how much difference a transport can make. Is this because the answer is "not very much"?

Does anyone have some experience to share?

Regards, Phil.

[DSJR]

Can you define a 'better' transport? More expensive, lower jitter (achieved I believe in very cheap stuff nowadays) or what?

I know those of us around at the time have a huge fondness for the battleship machines and transports of the late 80's, when CD finally started to show what it could really do imo, but I wonder how much different a basic £150 Denon machine would cope as a transport these days - I have a DCD1520 from yesteryear and also a newer (but now elderly) DCD 1015 and as transports, they 'sound' identical' to me.

[Phil Y]

Thanks for the Reply,
Well, as ever, by better I suppose I mean newer and/or more expensive.

Like many people I expect, I have a modern DAC with a fairly old, budget(low mileage) CD player being used as a transport.
Would a new budget CDP or even one of the cheaper dedicated transports available, be likely to deliver better sound. My assumption is that there would not be much difference but I was hoping that someone might have first hand experience.

My interest is because I have a small "office" system that is currently tuner only and I would like to add CD. My first thought was to buy a cheap S/H CDP for that system but then I thought of the option of moving my current CDP to the office and getting a better transport for my main system.

Phil.

[pre65]

I've recently purchased a Cambridge CXC transport. The price varies between £250 - £300 at Richer sounds and mine was at the lower price.

It's not run in yet but I feel it is a little bit better than the DVD-3910 I was using before.

Perhaps I should go back to the DVD-3910 and see if I can tell the difference.

[The Stratmangler]

I've recently purchased a Cambridge CXC transport. The price varies between £250 - £300 at Richer sounds and mine was at the lower price.

It's not run in yet but I feel it is a little bit better than the DVD-3910 I was using before.

Perhaps I should go back to the DVD-3910 and see if I can tell the difference.

You have to use it to run it in.
Most folks just stick a disc in and leave it running for a couple of days.

I think you should go back and try the Denon.

[Phil Y]

Hello Philip,

Yes, I had seen the Cambridge CXC. Even bearing in mind that yours is not yet fully run in, it does sound like any differences are fairly small so I think I will be going for the cheap option.

Thanks all. Phil.

[Irene Idler]

Ooooh, I know something! I actually know something! I'm so excited!

I have a couple of good friends who are hardcore digital audio geeks, and what they've told me (and my own experience confirms) is that for the most accurate tracking, the old-fashioned Philips single-beam tracking system is vastly superior. It's just plain simpler to keep a single beam in proper alignment. Three-beam systems are superior when high-speed tracking is required, as in a CD/R drive, but they can also result in an increased rate of read errors due to alignment issues. This is *especially* true when the CD isn't in good condition. You may have noticed that CDs that will play fine on your CD player won't play in your computer's CD/DVD drive -- this is why. There's a good article about it here if you're interested in the technical details.

I don't know anything at all about dedicated CD transport devices, so I have no idea whether anyone's making them with single-beam tracking systems, but I'd definitely look into it before buying.

[rowuk]

I think that the most critical function is being able to read the disc in the first place. What good is a boutique transport when you can't listen to all of your discs.

[Mudshark]

I think that the most critical function is being able to read the disc in the first place. What good is a boutique transport when you can't listen to all of your discs.

Quite........

[DSJR]

Ooooh, I know something! I actually know something! I'm so excited!

You're quite correct, BUT...... The Philips CD-M9 was the finest mech they made for tracking, and Arcam used it best with their Alpha 5 and 6 players, even over really nasty scratches and scuffs (we had a bad copy of Miles Davis 'Tutu' that defeated almost everything else) and better than Sony's finest heavy jobs, but what that meant was that the disc manufacturers started cutting corners. the triple beam machines would perfectly track proper in-spec discs, but discs over the tolerance were rejected or badly skipped over. So what do we do? Either we have a transport that'll plough it's way through regardless of disc specs being ignored, or a transport that's perfect on in-spec discs but doesn't like put of spec ones.

Linn first brought this to our attention in the late 90's. their machines would play on-spec discs perfectly, but non red-book-standard discs weren't played well. They weren't alone here and once Philips went over to cheapo jap made triple-beam mechs, the discs began to improve again I remember...

I believe modern transports are basically DVD ones, as a dedicated CD drive is now too expensive in the small volumes they're made in - I could be wrong as this is second hand info - I'd recommend a player manufacturer with good after-care standards. Cambridge should be fine and Denon do some good looking machines that may make fine transports.

[Mudshark]

Get a cheap cdp (80s).........job done.

ebay is fullof em....£10- £100.

[Cressy Snr]

My long gone Arcam Delta 170.3 transport was the bees knees.
Wish I still had it. I bet is would still cut it with a modern DAC rather than the Black Box 3 early bitstream DAC I used with it.