Thanks for your replies, guys/girls. Spending £300 on a transport not a problem, but don’t want to do it and find out the problem was something else. Arcam don’t seem interested in doing it only suppling the part. This would be an easy fix if it worked, moving to something else would be hard as this player ticks a lot of boxes music wise and works well within my system. Moving forward I have two options, carry on and wait until the fault changes from intermittent to permanent and I can see what is really at fault. Start looking at a replacement, [not another CD player] to play my collection, which is at least a sonic equal to what I already have. My setup already includes a Sonos for internet radio and NAS. Also in the set-up is a turntable with 500+ LPs so not bothered about losing that textile feel of loading CD’s.
We only got into streaming a couple of years ago when we bought a SuperUniti.
Up to that point we’d been using a late 90s Micromega classic transport and DAC which still sounded very good. We have a CD collection of several thousand CDs.
However, now we’ve ripped all our CDs to NAS we can’t ever imagine having the hassle of getting off our seats to change CD. We’ve also lost all our CD storage racks which were dotted about. Streaming is just so much easier.
We’ve moved from SuperUniti to 272 to NDX2/nDAC and now use Tidal extensively. It’s the future 
Just clarify what you want to do, then we can advise… You don’t want to stream online so it’s either play your CD’s or Stream them.
One thing streaming offers which CDs don’t is online streaming. You may think you don’t want this. That is exactly what I thought when I started streaming from a NAS through my 272. But once I acquired a streamer which had native Qobuz integration, I decided to give it a try. Now at least half my listening is Qobuz and the range and quality of my musical enjoyment has increased substantially.
Roger
Yup, I too was reluctant to go to streaming but once I did I was wondering why I didn’t do it sooner. It’s been an exponential increase to my enjoyment of music.
I have >7K albums on my NAS, and Qobuz lossless in the cloud all at my fingertips and can be accessed in seconds.
I had a CD Transport for a short period of time, when compared to CD’s ripped to NAS and streaming in ND5XS I had at the time the CD Transport was returned to dealer. All the CD’s have been boxed up and sitting in a closet at the moment. I found the ease of selecting music via my iPad or iPhone is the preferred method for locating and selecting music to play.
Interesting replies, one thing that would be nice is 24bit recordings. The CD37 was a SACD player, and the price of some disks was crazy but was impressed by some. Is it possible to stream 24bit.
I understand all the benefits of control with a streamer but was there a sound improvement by effectively losing the transport or was there nothing in it.
Yes, I stream 24 bit from my NAS and Qobuz.
Sorry for being dim, what is a Qobuz.
Quality streaming service.
Qobuz is a music subscription service. I switched from TIDAL to Qobuz when the service became available in the United States. It has a catalogue of music which fits my listening needs and a lot of hi-res albums vs just CD quality or lower bit rate resolution. Do a internet search and their site will list which countries there service is available.
I have an Arcam Alpha 5+ CD player and when I got it the drawer would not move in or out under its own power.
The fault was a gear wheeel inside the player. A bit of a faff to replace but the spares were low cost off ebay and worked first time.
Still using it to play CDs. I like the Arcam sound (although I’m listening to a Naim CD player at the moment).
Thanks for the replies, stone age man I’m afraid. Perhaps another investigation into transport may be worth it, I too like the Arcam sound. Never jelled with Naim CD players but I’ve owned their amps which I fronted with a Linn Ikemi.
I had 500+ CDs - ripped them all into Flac. Never looked back. Also have a lot of HD/192 content and use Spotify now and again - waiting for Roon where I live.
I do have a Uniti that can play CDs, but have not done so for years. Kept the CDs and boxes for too long. Chucked all the cases (kept the ones worth more than 5 pounds - not many) - kept the CDs I liked the most in folders. Saved a ton of space - job done.
J
Main - NDX2, XPSDR, 250DR, Kudos C2, NAP282, HCDR
Uniti and Epos ES22
Uniti qute and Epos ES11
From @PeakMan :
“But there is something of a learning curve to get into streaming, at least that’s what I found. So, if you do decide to stick with CD, would a Rega player such as the latest version of the Saturn fit the bill? I’ve not heard it, but it ought to be a good match for your elicit.”
From me:
‘Like’
Worth a demo of a brand new cdt6000 if you want to stick with CDs and are concerned about the Arcam. I think your amp has two digital inputs.
Thinking about a 6000CDT myself, but need to decide on a DAC first🤔
You can always continue to run CD:s, if you want to stream later you can rip them or (if you rent music from qobuz etc.) stream it live. After all CD:s is a practical format to bring along and so on and you are independent of networks and software versions.
And remember that 24-bit is only the digital storage format. Even the best streamer/dacs are limited to 20-bits when you convert to analog. While many CD:s are mastered with noise shaped dither that gives you the equivalent of 18-bits in the midrange.
So you can basically go with what you think is most practical.
NDX2. Opens up the world of streaming. I run a 6000cdt into it for the occasional cd session.
I think its important to remember that Streaming requires a subscription to at least one streaming service - at different pricing/quality levels. Free trials don’t last for ever - so for anyone new to streaming, they should consider the monthly/annual cost.