2. digital
  3. 134519-6041

CD Player used as transport

Does anyone have experience trying different CDPs as a transport for a DAC? I've tried a few and the results were all over the map in performance from terrible to OK, I suspect problems from the balance of the unit creep into the performance of the transport. Some could be poorly made or the designed is a 2nd thought from a transport perspective. There seem to be a lot of new or used options in the $500 range from manufactures like Oppo, Marantz, Sony, CA etc. but do any of them get the design and integration of the transport right so the unit can stand alone as a quality transport? I'm a vinyl and CD spinner, tried the computer route didn't like it. Looking to improve the transport side of CD playback before I consider upgrading my DAC.
128x128musichead
audioengr
3,282 posts
 

Every transport will have different jitter characteristics, and typically fairly high jitter.  This is the difference you are hearing.  For transports, only output jitter matters, nothing else.  You can lower this a bit by putting various treatments on the disk, but the simple and more effective method is to add a Synchro-Mesh reclocker in the S/PDIF cable.  This has several advantages:

1) lowers the jitter to ~20psec - only the most expensive transports achieve this

2) upsamples the data to 24/96 - this forces the DAC to select a better sounding digital filter internally further improving SQ

3) provides galvanic isolation - breaks the ground-loop between the transport and the DAC which lowers the noise floor

4) it is no longer necessary to treat the disks to lower jitter

Here are measurements showing the effect of the Synchro-Mesh on an Oppo transport:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=154408.0

It is highly recommended that you use the best S/PDIF digital cable you can afford for the output to the DAC from the Synchro-Mesh.  The Empirical Audio Standard BNC cable is $275 and will satisfy this requirement. 

Here are some jitter plots showing how much jitter is added by typical S/PDIF coax cables:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=154425.0

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

Jitter is our expertise.

roxy54's avatar
roxy54
7,649 posts
 
Pioneer Elite CD players, like a PD 65 make good transports. They have the clamping system.
tooblue
1,882 posts
 
@audioengr , I am of the same mind as the OP and don't really want to get into computer audio for various reasons and found your answer intriguing, I have an older Wadia transport since new and connect it to a Jadis dac by the AES connection also have a Shitt Gungnir M/B dac connected to a Cambridge Audio CDX transport by way of the rca. Do you feel your answer would improve either of my dac transport combos especially the latter. Cables used in both instances are Acoustic Zen MC2.
More to discover