CD Transport Recommendations

[muon*]

21 minutes ago, SonicArt said:

I mentioned the review comparing to CXC on the first page, seemed to me it needs a lot more reviewing against other transports especially at the landed price.

Sorry, I must have missed that.

 

I agree with all you say

[MattyW]

46 minutes ago, John0001 said:

Overall the reviews/impressions linked above are pretty positive of the URD and clearly say its superior to streaming (not that that is hard to do as most streaming sounds pretty ordinary). Not seeing why it "ought to have a to have a T in front?"??

you need to be force fed rice wine to see.
 

This shits about 60% anyway having impressed myself by not having fed the chickens, ducks and geese and watched their drunken behavior….. I’m going to pass out for a bit

Edited September 3, 2023 by MattyW

[John0001]

Haha I'll stick with some single malt 

[muon*]

Jay's Audio CDT2-MK3 in the classifieds or $2150

 

 

[MoonDrifter]

Thanks for the heads up on the CDT2 in the classifieds. I would want to demo a used player which is not possible with this one and I really need a black one to match the rest of my gear, but really appreciate the effort to advise of this sale.

[muon*]

3 minutes ago, MoonDrifter said:

Thanks for the heads up on the CDT2 in the classifieds. I would want to demo a used player which is not possible with this one and I really need a black one to match the rest of my gear, but really appreciate the effort to advise of this sale.

I prefer black in my setup, unfortunately I ended up with silver DAC and Transport

[Irek]

[Irek]

[muon*]

Primare dd35 transport

 

Mechanism is the TEAC CD 5020A-AT

 

Digital outs = 1 x RCA + 1 x TOSLINK

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by muon*

[muon*]

Here is another review of the Jay's CDT2 Mk3

 

https://www.hifiwigwam.com/articles/jays-audio-cd2t-mk-iii-cd-transport.84/

 

The only transport he had that was in the same ballpark was the more pricey Audio Note CD4T. Reading his review he was using AES and not i2s.

Edited September 3, 2023 by muon*

[rockeater]

All reviews of every piece of gear are positive since Hi-Fi Choice lost a law suit for having a bad review. Which until then they regularly printed.

In court it was not debated if it was true or not or if the product compared favourable to similar ones in the price range.

The gist of the matter was that the maker has lost money and market share and hence the review was damaging to the business.

And since review can be read everywhere, there is always some market where a maker or distributor is impacted.

 

All that reviews are good for in my opinion, is to find out the list of features / inputs / outputs and other specifications.

Edited September 4, 2023 by rockeater

[MattyW]

1 hour ago, rockeater said:

All reviews of every piece of gear are positive since Hi-Fi Choice lost a law suit for having a bad review. Which until then they regularly printed.

In court it was not debated if it was true or not or if the product compared favourable to similar ones in the price range.

The gist of the matter was that the maker has lost money and market share and hence the review was damaging to the business.

And since review can be read everywhere, there is always some market where a maker or distributor is impacted.

 

All that reviews are good for in my opinion, is to find out the list of features / inputs / outputs and other specifications.

I never wrote that quoted text hey….. Can you update please?

[muon*]

@rockeater Matt is correct, what you have him as quoted is not what he said, it was said by John0001.

[John0001]

The reviews/impressions linked to and reacted to were on a forum and certainly appear to be user impressions, not a professional review as such. No where was Hi-Fi Choice even mentioned. Original forum link below.

 

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/schiit-urd-impressions.13605/page-6

 

And agree commercial magazine/online reviews should be viewed with scepticism IMHO.

[muon*]

A lot of people are finding that any half decent dedicated Transport is bettering their streaming for SQ.

 

So I look for where transports are compared to others.

[SonicArt]

My experience is an early player like the Luxman 357 I upgraded (caps only in the signal and after regulators) and sold last year, sounded better than a $1500 streamer at the time. So to the Cambridge 640 I upgraded for the owner of the streamer. He now has a Gustard, around 2.5k? I think it cost, not sure if he has compared it to his CD player back to back yet, but I wouldnt be surprised if the Cambridge digital into the dac side is better.

[muon*]

13 minutes ago, SonicArt said:

My experience is an early player like the Luxman 357 I upgraded (caps only in the signal and after regulators) and sold last year, sounded better than a $1500 streamer at the time. So to the Cambridge 640 I upgraded for the owner of the streamer. He now has a Gustard, around 2.5k? I think it cost, not sure if he has compared it to his CD player back to back yet, but I wouldnt be surprised if the Cambridge digital into the dac side is better.

I generally am not a fan of Cambridge gear, but if the Cambridge has a good digital out it wouldn't totally surprise me either.

[MoonDrifter]

The internal photo of the Primare DD35 does not look too impressive build quality wise. Certainly nowhere near as robust looking as the Moon 260D, CDT2 Mk3 or Cyrus CDt XR.

Hopefully it sounds much better than it looks but I dont think i will add it to my demo list but appreciate identifying it as a possible option.

[Irek]

2 hours ago, MoonDrifter said:

The internal photo of the Primare DD35 does not look too impressive build quality wise. Certainly nowhere near as robust looking as the Moon 260D, CDT2 Mk3 or Cyrus CDt XR.

Hopefully it sounds much better than it looks but I dont think i will add it to my demo list but appreciate identifying it as a possible option.

I only have Primare amplifier and it's a very high quality, I mean the sound, the look and remote control. 

[POV]

12 hours ago, muon* said:

A lot of people are finding that any half decent dedicated Transport is bettering their streaming for SQ.

I think perhaps a lot of people saying this aren’t using a half decent streaming setup and aren’t comparing apples with apples.  On that basis, makes sense to take any other comparisons with a healthy grain of salt.

[POV]

2 hours ago, MoonDrifter said:

The internal photo of the Primare DD35 does not look too impressive build quality wise. Certainly nowhere near as robust looking as the Moon 260D, CDT2 Mk3 or Cyrus CDt XR.

Hopefully it sounds much better than it looks but I dont think i will add it to my demo list but appreciate identifying it as a possible option.

I wouldn’t recommend judging a digital device by internal photos.  The magic with digital is with circuit layout and design, and effectively designed and integrated power supply.    I don’t know what you mean by robust, but Primare know how to design digital circuits.

[Falcon 500]

If you see a Denafrips Avatar for sale they are a great buy excellent build.I had a Jays CDT2 MK3 for a comparison both using Spdif output and in my set up I preferred the Denafrips just better in the whole FR.

[muon*]

16 hours ago, Falcon 500 said:

If you see a Denafrips Avatar for sale they are a great buy excellent build.I had a Jays CDT2 MK3 for a comparison both using Spdif output and in my set up I preferred the Denafrips just better in the whole FR.

Pity there aren't more of the Avatar's around.

[SonicArt]

On 04/09/2023 at 10:28 PM, POV said:

I think perhaps a lot of people saying this aren’t using a half decent streaming setup.

What is half decent though? And what is the $$ cost to get half decent streaming?

 

The above is a serious question for the group, to me, streaming offers one thing CD doesnt, range of music available at any one time. Very few (if any) of us have xx thousands of CD's on the shelf just waiting to be played, nor likely the space needed for them...

 

As far as comparisons, my experience with customers gear has been largely in the $1500-2500 or so streamers, a few computer based ones (the IT guys who spend a lot of time working on their networks, power supplies etc) and a few higher end $5-10k streamers which sound extremely good, but still dont pip the best transport/dac combo.

 

The $1.5-2.5K range is easily beaten by many older (90's-2010) players especially if they have a few mods, and we are talking values around the $500-800 mark in most players. Of course the player choice is very important as many who are newer to serious CD playback are discovering...

Bear in MIND, this is my experience only, its not open for debate

[John0001]

The attraction of CD (to me) is avoiding all the tweaky, complex setup of a streaming setup, and actually getting better sound quality too. Win win.