Good CDTransport (player) without DAC?


Hello, i have a great DAC Streamer (Elac DDP2), but now I an looking for an additional device to read CDs, but it does not need to have a DAC. 

Can you recommend a good price based CD Transport/Player? The CD reading quality should be good, but no need to spend money for an internal DAC as I have the DDP2. Would be nice if it also looks good, and not too old fashion. 

I found the
- Pro-Ject CD Box S2
- Pro-Ject DS2T

but the reviews are not saying a lot, especially ratings are medium low. Whats is your idea?
peterzuerich

Showing 1 response by bigkidz

I have heard the majority of the above transports and a few more. To me and most of the people whom we auditioned a bunch of transports we all still prefer the CEC. The current TL5 model is a great sounding transport new on eBay for a little over $1100. You have to convert the internal wires for US operations though, which is a simple swap or send it to me and I will do the swap at not charge. For a budget transport get a NANO and use a better power supply versus the tiny wall wart that is provided. That CD Transport was amazing for the $400 I paid new for mine. It was not embarrassed by my Audiomeca Mephisto II which is the best transport I have heard and owned in the $6500 price range. The other recommendations are good but in comparison are slightly less in sound quality then the ones I recommend. Plus we did the comparison in three different systems just to make sure we did a fair comparison. There are plenty of older transports that are very good but parts availability is becoming an issue with lasers.  The Rega is also very good even the used ones (Apollo and Saturn) but give up a little in the mid-range for overall sound quality.

Happy Listening.