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Recently by an accident, I connected an old Denon DV 3910 to current Burson Conductor V2+ DAC in my system just to test the DAC by using Denon's SPDIF output. To my complete surprise, I was floored how good my ole CDs sounded. The music flowed with ease and unbelievable details I was missing and improving imaging and sound staging of the CDs I had. I felt I was squeezing everything out of the CD format at last.
Considering huge advancements in external DAC technology such as the Burson DAC at reasonable cost, I am wondering - it would be interesting to find the best CD or DVD player and use it as a CD transport and call it done for CD media.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Follow Ups:
I have not yet encountered a CD player that sounds as good as the dedicated transports I have tried. No doubt there are some; I haven't encountered them yet.
There is nothing wrong with a "minority" opinion. Was VHS better quality than BETA? Is digital better than analog? Is solid-state better than tubes?
Those that stuck with the existing formats at the time were, eventually, in the minority. Other than "Keeping Up with the Joneses" - Why should one change to conform with the majority?
I have tried many approaches to Digital other than CD's. The alternatives simply do not sound better to me. I have had several listeners - some in the repair/modification business- tell me to hang on to my CD's.
To each his/her own.
Excellent suggestions -All.
My favorite "transport" is the old JVC XL-Z1050 CD player.... When I used the Prism DA-2 DAC, this is what I used personally.
The "best" transport I've ever heard was the Audiomeca Mephisto. Problem is these units develop horrible "skipping" problems, and nobody seems to be able to repair them. Essentially becoming expensive boat anchors. Another great transport is the Wadia 7, but I don't know if it's compatible with non-Wadia DACs.
When you say how good your CDs sound I'm not sure what you're comparing it to. Another CD transport, or perhaps a computer USB transport? If the latter, you may be hearing how poor this format is compared to disc transports. A minority opinion I know, but that's my experience. If the former, I second the recommendation below of a new Cambridge CXC CD transport.
Edits: 02/05/17 02/05/17 02/05/17
" .. computer USB transport? If the latter, you may be hearing how poor this format is compared to disc transports. A minority opinion I know"
My opinion too, based on what I hear. I bought an expensive good quality DAC to try high quality downloads. The demos which I tried left me most unimpressed. CDs loaded onto my laptop were not great, not as good as CDs played on a CD player into the dac, or in fact on the CD player.
I therefore bought a dedicated CD player (Gryphon Scorpio). Yes, I know it's an outdated technology, out of favour, but it sounds damned fine and better than any of the above that I've tried. And I'm a fussy vinyl junkie...
Just my personal take, I am in a minority - but BRab, you ain't alone. :-)
nt
> A minority opinion I know, but that's my experience.
I find your thinking rather odd. If you truly believe yours is a minority opinion, it would indicate to me that you must be doing something differently from the majority of us who believe that our ripped CDs sound just as good as those played from a transport.
I've always found the sound quality from my ripped CDs to be every bit as good as the sound quality from my high-end CD transport. Of course, I've always used the same high-end DAC that was connected to my transport for playing my ripped CDs.
Therefore, since you acknowledge your opinion is a minority opinion, why wouldn't you want to change your approach to match the majority of us who prefer the sound of our ripped CDs? Instead, you seem to be fixated on convincing us that we're listening to inferior sound quality instead of striving to improve your system to match ours. That just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Best regards,
John Elison
I think a lot depends on how you like your music and what you are used to. Things evolve wrt technology evolution, and most accept it automatically as an improvement (how can more technology be bad??) I worked in Silicon Valley for a number of years, and prefer as little 'technology' as I can find. Simple example - many watch things on their wee portable devices and are very happy. Is this really as visually satisfying, and conveying of the sense of the visuals, as a purpose build larger tv or video monitor. Guess it is up to taste and your need for technology.
I used to listen to a modern cd player. Went to a DAC with 2 x UA 20400 chips, and the improvement in musicality and joy of listening was amazing. The reason given from moving away from these chips to the modern ones - ease of fabrication and the application of processing after the fact. They never mentioned improved musicality, because that was not a reason or a result. There seems to be a trend now to try to recreate the ladder type dacs - maybe there is a reason for it.
Similar effect when I moved to a dedicated transport from the aforementioned CD player as a transport. Huge improvement, even the wife was stunned. I recently went to a neighbor's house and he was decided whether his new OPPO was a better 'transport' than his old PS Audio Lambda. After a short listen it was obvious, and it was clearly not the OPPO.
The real modern / old tradeoff, to my mind, is ease of use, convenience, and lower price vs a, potentially large, loss in musicality. With a streamer you can get what you want, when you want it, and don't have to mess with a CD. Most have never heard an 'old' system, so a basis for comparison does not exist. That might be a good thing, because if you did then you might not be so excited about what you are currently listening to. Or not. All desires and ears are different - what sounds good to me may sound bad to you, and we would both be right.
regards -- Roger
I have to agree that if you can find a good dedicated transport, then that will give you the best performance. I am personally an advocate of more vintage transports, and of as high a quality as you can find (that is consistent with the rest of your system).
Over time I have discovered (on my system, to my ears) that the more processing the source and signal has, the less it sounds like music. Precise perhaps, but that is not the same as musical. If you consider the amount of processing that goes on in a new 'store then play' transport, the music has been totally homogenized. I gather thought was that that the disc reading issues with newer transports could be offset with lots of post processing. Seems that a less than ideal read can only be patched up so much.
Just an alternate perspective. My objective has always to get my system to sound as much as possible like real music (to me). There are alternate, totally fine objectives, and certainly other ears that hear things differently.
regards -- Roger
My trusty Classe CDP 1 which I had been using as a transport for years recently died terminally,parts no longer available. I replaced it with a Cambridge CXC TRANSPORT and I'm pleasantly surprised. In keeping what others have said,it's. Probably the DAC that's more important today within reason.That said, I can't tell any difference in the sound of my system between this $500 transport and my multi-thousand CDP from 20 years ago. This is despite the fact that the old unit had an AES/EBU interface and the new unit has only an RCA jack.
Given that CD's are largely a dead end medium.this relatively inexpensive solution was very attractive.
Edits: 02/05/17 02/05/17
Does the Cambridge transport allow for progamming tracks with the remote?
Thanks for the info, Batman. I was considering that unit, but my listening habits require programming capability.
Turns out my 20 year old rotel remote operates the Cambridge, suggesting an off the shelf remote mechanism, and that it might not be difficult to find a 3rd party programmable remote for the CXC, which is a really good transport.
Edits: 02/14/17
No, just randomly play individual tracks.
The one thing I don't like about the unit is the remote. It's designed to control other CX series components so it has buttons for CX SERIES amplifiers, receivers, and DVD players so it has many more buttons than I need to control the transport. But that's kinda normal for today's electronics so I'll live with it.
Hi Ki,
I recommend ripping all your CDs to your computer hard drive and forget about playing CDs. That's what I did four years ago and I wouldn't go back to playing CDs if you paid me. I ripped mine to WAV files, but there might be better formats for including metadata. I don't care much about metadata, though. I play my CDs directly from a USB hard drive connected to my Oppo BDP-105D and it actually adds the metadata. It apparently knows what I'm playing and it gets the metadata from the internet.
Anyway, forget about CDs and play your music from USB drives. If you get the new Oppo UDP-205, you can connect it to your Burson DAC and play just about everything digital from the Oppo UDP-205 through the Burson DAC.
Best regards,
John Elison
"I recommend ripping all your CDs to your computer hard drive and forget about playing CDs."
I personally have the opposite opinion..... I think this would be a huge step backwards..... Sorry.......
I've never had satifaction with server-based playback, save for MP3 and YouTube tracks. Not to mention the time wasted ripping CDs to a hard drive, and the countless times the results varied with ripping software, playback software, and even the computer's operating system.
I haven't had any problems whatsoever ripping CDs to my hard drive. I use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and it works perfectly every time. I play all my digital music through my Oppo BDP-105D and it sounds as good or better than any CD player I've owned or heard. You're certainly welcome to your opinion, but I refuse to waste my time playing CDs and it is a big waste of time. To each his own!
Best regards,
John Elison
Having ripped a few CD's, I realised I could better spend my Life hours watching paint dry.
Sure it's easy to sort and select tracks once in Memory... BFD.
Getting there takes so much effort that it seems a pointless affectation.
Not considering inserting a disc and pushing a play button as onerous.
It sounds to me like you rip CDs much differently than I. It might take a little extra effort to rip a CD but for the most part, it's pretty much as simple as playing one. Exact Audio Copy does all the work. It automatically labels all the tracks and checks the data to make sure there are no errors. It even corrects errors when it runs into problems. All I do is load the CD into the tray and push the "rip" button. Ripping takes less than half the time it takes to play a CD. Consequently, it seems easier to me to rip a CD than to play it.
Oh, well. Such is life!
Best regards,
John Elison
Ki-
you cannot go wrong w/ the players from Japan (Denon, Pioneer Elite & Sony ES).
For years, my modified (by me) Sony XA-30ES was my transport with reclocked SPDIF output to my DACs. This was back in the "early" days before upsampling was the norm and high precision, low phase noise clocks were implemented as standard in DACs.
Now, I have abandoned it in favour of an Oppo 103 which also offers Network Streaming capabilities.
I have a reference clock (which I have also used to reclock the output of the Oppo to my DAC. There IS a difference. However, the cost required to get to that point of making the cost of the source irrelevant wouldn't make economic sense if I were buying everything from scratch!
My DAC is an NAD M51 which has very low jitter inputs including HDMI which is as good as the other inputs without needing a matched source to use a proprietary reclocking scheme like other manufacturers.
I now use the HDMI output straight to my DAC and wouldn't consider for a minute that I needed to put the reclocking back in.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
I would buy a transport rather than a CD or DVD player. Check that parts are still available for it and that it has the outputs you want. My last transport was a California Audio Labs Delta and it played everything without fuss.
Audiophiles will split hairs on how CD transports sound but as you have discovered for yourself, it is the DAC that made the BIGGEST improvement in your setup.
You might get a slight incremental bump in performance with a better transport but nothing like what you gained with the DAC, IMHO.
That being said, I don't think there's a "BEST" transport or "BEST" anything out there. I liked the Sony XA7-ES CDP transport but some cheap Pioneers are also excellent. Personally, I wouldn't blow a wad of cash on a transport or CD player these days. But that's just me I suppose.
You are absolutely right, but it took a while to get to that point where the DAC would be essentially source agnostic once the engineering issues had been ironed out. Much of that attitude also came from the Source First concept which was oft propagated in the press.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
I never myself understood how the transport could even affect the sound. If the DAC is buffering the input from the source it could correct any timing errors, misreads, whatever in real time, before it ever gets decoded. As long as the transport reads the bits it shouldn't matter. And as most of us did, we ripped the CDs to our computers and did away with the transport. Now with streaming and downloads, who needs them? The bitrate of a CD is so low by computer standards. I used to argue this on the forums, but always got shouted down by the audiophools, and this was long before streaming/downloads took over. The digital is bit perfect or it doesn't work, but the analog needs to have timing, pitch and amplitude correct to sound good, otherwise you'll just get bad sound.
Only my bluray still acts as a transport but it never sees any use for music anymore, even though I bought the Oppo for music. I also have a 10 year old iMac that has a DVD drive in it that my son uses when he buys discs, something I actually don't understand myself that he still buys them. I'm an old fart and stopped buying CDs years ago, but still buy vinyl.
I still buy CDs! The reason is that CDs are becoming quite cheap now in second hand stores - they are being virtually thrown out at record stores now and I can pick up bargains again. It's funny having lived through the throw out of vinyl (which benefitted my collection enormously!) to the throw out of CDs and the rising price of vinyl (even second hand).
Back to your first sentence though...
Jitter is the main reason. However, it is only a problem at the final decode stage to analogue unless the engineer has implemented additional strategies to clean up (or ensure) a clean bitclock. Up to that point (as long as it wasn't imprinted on the data at the ADC stage), it really doesn't matter what happens in between as long as the jitter is within the receiver tolerance range.
The problem comes when you try and transmit data using the SPDIF format since the "clock" is embedded as part of the bitstream which is recovered by the receiver when the preamble data frame is detected.
However, the technology you refer to with DAC input buffering, reclocking and the like only came long after the initial attempts at 2 box systems highlighted surprising differences between transports and careful matching of DAC and transport became mandatory. Without these strategies, the source can be very audible.
In the "early" days (late 80s, early 90s) when the "2 boxes were better than one" idea was being touted as the "best", there was a genuine problem with jitter. In fact the single box players would better the 2 box approach in many cases. It took a fair amount of time before even the cheapest DAC had all the technical fundamentals sorted and single chip solutions are readily available. Reclocking, upsampling etc are comparatively recent (late 90s early 2000s). The transport "source impedance" and DAC "termination" impedance often weren't consistent with frequency and didn't match the 75 ohm standard. This sets up reflections in the transmission line which then leads to a jittery recovered clock since the clock is embedded in the SPDIF datastream and if the receiver doesn't pick up the preamble data at a consistent rate, you end up with jitter on the recovered clock. The interface receivers were also not very robust and the clock signal were also jittery due to injected noise from power supplies. Of course these days, reclocking is de rigeur. Also, these days upsampling is a standard "trick" to reduce the effect of jitter on the recovered data.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Jitter may be a problem, but like you say, only at the final stage. Read a CD at 10x or more, store it on a memory chip that costs pennies these days, and read and reclock it from there. I guess that's what we do now, but it took too long to get there. They were trying to solve for imperfect streams, when the stream could be eliminated entirely.
I had an original Magnavox CD player, the FD1000 I think it was, it came out at the same time as the first Sony as Philips and Sony developed it jointly. I never should have given that away. This was the player that Meridian took and modified and sold for a small fortune. I never heard the Meridian version though. It was the coolest component that I had at the time. I had to drive for an hour to buy CDs for it. I still have some of those early CDs and they just sound awful. It is amazing that anybody went along with CD, it was like fingernails on a blackboard with classical, rock albums without any bass, jazz sounded like it was being played behind a screen.
"Perfect Sound Forever". Forever lasted 30 years.
Don't bother with the standard Sony/Philips transport mechanisms.A ROM drive is infinitely better.The PS Audio and MSB transports that "read" until you obtain a "bit-perfect" copy,prior to transference to the DAC.
Made a huge difference in tonal saturation.With the standard transports,you will probably be trying to add this characteristic through cabling.This "buggers" the sound and it never recovers.
There are a few MSBs with the full power supply, being offered at competitive prices.
Tom:cat
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