CD Transport Thoughts

[MKL1]

I have a CEC CD5 which is better than Cyrus CDI XR, Cyrus CDI, Rega Apollo, Naim CD5si to my ears. I prefer top loaders to tray or slot loading. The Rega Saturn would have been considered as well. None close to CDS3/555PS however in my system. Rega Isis would be my choice if I was not retired and budget constrained!

[Dunc]

We are talking about cd transports here and not cd players.
As in you use the transport into a dac, and not use the dac built into the cd player.

A very different way to above, and a much better way to do it if you already have a great dac, not so good if you dont have a great dac.

[Steve]

The Arcam D33 DAC is one of my favourite pieces of audio equipment ever purchased. A very analogue sound to my ears. Natural and just makes music. Probably not the last word in detail these days but I like it. Thats why I want a decent transport. The DAC will dictate the sound more than the transport but I have heard too many people singing the praises of transports to ignore this upgrade itch

[whitedragem]

Those stable platter Pioneers existed in a decade when NonOversampling was the golden fleece and finding a matching system was an esoteric dilemma that yielded great music when sorted.

My ‘budget’ AudioGd (R28) DAC has a setting to control the tightness of the digital feed, and with a high quality transport like that Pioneer ‘upper tier’ stable platter unit; I would set the DAC to NOS mode and set the digital stream ‘tightness’ to ‘tight’. (matching high quality kit)

The treble harshness in just about any Sabre design (sans tube output stage, or clever design topology/‘power supply’ etc such as the Burson Conductor V2+ implementation (8channel sabre used in 2 channel mode as ‘sounds better’)) I find ‘harsh’ and need to get away from.

Even the AKM 4492ENB / 4497 /4499 can be bright to me if configured for ‘spec sheet warefare’ (eg Topping D90)

I’d go the DAC pathway to sort out the ‘treble’ as Delta Sigma DACs (>95% of the market) work with about 10% of the source data and guess there way ‘up’ and the treble is high frequencies that can be guessed incorectly, often, and unless ‘tube output’ /etc to tame the resultant audio circuit, can be a ‘hard listen’.

cables etc can tame aspects… (as can speaker selection etc) but putting a nice R2R (ladder) DAC in place and matching a decent transport and playing lossless audio is a start to getting back towards analogue sound as we had at the height of two channel digital audio. (prior to DAC chips having to handle more channels and a huge range of sample rates and bit depths)

Not saying great Delta Sigma designs can sound amazing… (it is the whole circuit, not just the DAC chip that matters), but treble harshness from the accurate transport (not experience via the USB input on the same kit!!?) is revealing of the parts involved.

That stable platter would match up well with an AudioGd ‘budget’ DAC, I’d recommend an R28 (headphone amp as well), but lesser parts will do the trick.
I only recommend AudioGd as they have a digital ‘tightness’ control (most mass market stuff is digital ‘compatible’ and has a very loose tolerance/happy to use lots of error correction to ‘get by’).

Non Oversampling is harsher to many peoples ears, until it isn’t (due to proper matching ancillary equipment); and having some kit that allows toying with this stuff can be ‘very revealing’.

Any transport that is altering your treble harshness is likely doing so due to error correction rates.
Digital output should be the same from all devices. (of course nothing could be further from the truth)

CD Trasnports built in the nineties still worked on basis of ‘garbage in is garbage out’ and didn’t just guess there way to a stable digital feed…
Your DAC seems to be revealing Delta Sigma harshness in the treble when given a full accurate digital stream…

I’d say - make use of that full accurate digital stream and have a DAC with a tolerance adjustment, and set it to ‘tight’ for the high quality tarnsport you presently have!

otherwise - a lot of sidegrading and ‘chasing ones tail’ (and poor value/bang to buck) ‘hifi upgrades’

only (modern) DACs I have with ‘natural’/nice treble are either R2R or use valve output stages.

(the Chord DACs are nice, but certainly not accurate to the source data; and if fed something top tier, digital stream wise, as the PD8700,-would probably become ‘very trebly’- more so than lesser transports might offer)

I’d buy a different DAC topology / with stream tolerance control, as the first step in sorting this out…

[Steve]

@whitedragem what a thoroughly good post. Thanks for all of your comments. Come took a bit of thought to process. Its at the limit of my knowledge for sure!

To conclude you are suggesting my current transport will be hard to beat with a more expensive/modern offering?

I have made one change in the system since posting. I changed the Rega Couple 2 interconnect to an Audioquest Water. This made quite a difference… bear in mind the interconnect is DAC to Headphone amp so is relevant to both USB and Optical (CD) connections. This made things better on CD replay by removing some of the higher frequency glare. The difference from USB was smaller but still there.

I really like the DAC with the filters. There is something about the sound thats just right for my ears and music taste. I tried a DVD player into the optical connection, NOT as good as the Pioneer! I also tried my Melco… Amazing!

This leaves me again with the CD Player which now is great and maybe/maybe not able to be bettered…