When I heard the Transporter, it was in
Philnyc's system, and it ran into Dodson DA-218 dac. I am pretty familiar with Phil's system and can tell if he changed something from the last time I heard it. Anyway, this wasn't an extended audition, but enough time to get an idea of Transporter's capabilities. We ran it into Dodson via Acoustic Zen Silver Bytes digital IC, AZ Silver RefII from Dodson to preamp....and Phil, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I recall the ICs as either Silver Ref II or AZ Absolute. Anyway, we then ran the Transporter using first the AZ Matrix II and then the same ICs as were used from the Dodson direct into the preamp without the Dodson dac and to say that I was impressed with the sonics of the Transporter is an understatement. The sound was great. Yeah, the Dodson provided more depth to the soundstage and a bit bigger images(that's what I noticed the most) and the Dodson sounded a bit more refined overall, but that's to be expected when you compare an $8k Dodson DA-218 dac to a digital to analog conversion section of a $2k Transporter. But if the Dodson 218 wasn't there for comparison, I doubt that I would be able to pick any shortcomings in the Transporter's performance. Again, you have to listen to it in your own system, but as far as I'm concerned, this piece is a great value and an outstanding performer. I'd not even hesitate to compare it to a solid state cd players probably in the $3-4k range. I found no serious faults in its performance.
Do a search on Audiogon for Transporter in systems....perhaps e-mail few Tranporter owners here and ask them what they think and what they compared it to.
Good luck.
