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Confused About Relative Sonic Impact of DAC VS. Transport

I've borrowed a Heed DT Transport to use in place of my Jollida JD100 CDP and am confused by what I'm hearing. 
My DAC is R2R ladder/non-oversampling Aqua La Voce. With Jolida in system, the sound is on the warm side of neutral without verging into tube-like, euphonics. With the Heed transport, all I seem to notice are the liabilities of every CD I play. 

If the Heed is more efficient at reading data from the CD than the Jolida, does this mean I am hearing the effect of the DAC more clearly, or am I hearing the effect of more information from the disc?

At first, I enjoyed the increased resolution, but with further listening, the sound, overall, strikes me as "thin" (as though lacking lower mids) and the highs verge on fatiguing. 

Switching out footers has some effect, as does tweaking my Schitt Loki EQ, but I'm still not very happy.

Excuse my French, but WTF is going on, here ?

BTW, John Darko, when reviewing the Aqua, recommended it as a particularly good choice for harsh-sounding CDs. 





stuartk

Showing 3 responses by itzhak1969

itzhak1969
515 posts
 
"do agree that the Jolida was affecting the sound, as there was much greater consistency from one CD to the next. "
"At first, I enjoyed the increased resolution"

good high end transport designed to be more revealing and detailed
That’s meaning that there is no consistency between one cd to another and you should hear more details because good transport extract more details and resulition , bad recording cd will sound terrible and good recording will sound spectacular this is what good hi end designed to do. I think your Jolida wasn’t good enough so all your cds sounded consistent with low relatively resolution but
the ’thin’ and fatiguing sound of the Heed I suspect is because maybe this transport is not in a good synergy with your system and / or upgrading your coax and rca cables is a must and/or the Heed is not good enough transport.
I have the Simaudio 260T it’s a remarkable transport first I bought it there was nothing special after a long break-in its sound is so natural and analog I am not missing my vinyl collection anymore,.You should consider also the CEC TL5, Jay CD transport and Cyrus CD T all remarkable transport options.


itzhak1969
515 posts
 
The Simaudio 260T needs about 200 hours break in period but my impression is that you'll hear immediately that it's better than the Heed.
SPDIF cable is inferior to coax I don't recommend to change it but quality coax and rca cables are a must to allow your system to perform at its best.
itzhak1969
515 posts
 
"I’m still hearing fatiguing highs with other CDs that were not evident with the Jolida. "

The Heed is much better than the Jolida I suspect it is more revealing on bad recordings
, One of the characters of bad recording is bright highs which causing the fatiguing sound I am not sure that it’s because something is wrong with your current system this is the price you have to pay when you are improving your system ! after I upgraded my system unfortunately many CDs can not be heard anymore because they were recorded badly. However @mooglie is right with his response Silver might add more brightness to the sound and for most systems copper cables are better. Silver cables are better for systems that suffer of too worm sound and not enough resolution.
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