Here goes my 2 cents worth. I posted my response in another thread regarding the Jay’s Audio transport and my old Metronome C1A transport. My ears I found the Metronome more musical with a deeper soundstage. The owner of the Jays transport felt it had a little more dynamics and something else I forget. I prefer dimension to the soundstage as the Jays sounded a little flat to my ears. By I also like a musical sound with digital which the Metronome had. Sometimes people hear depth as less dynamic but to me you have to really listen and compare those soundstages to understand the total sound. I want backing vocals and instruments sounding more in the back of the soundstage. I have owned CEC transports in the past and own a CEC TL5100z but it was not working at that time. A friend of mine owns a CEC TL3N transport and I wanted to compare that to the Jays but it was not available then so I was only able to compare it to the Metronome in my system. The CEC was a better sounding transport than the Metronome in my system. Deeper bass and a little bigger soundstage. It has a sound that was just sweeter, vocals and piano were simply better, with better overall texture. It was more musical sounding. I just finished my CEC TL5100z so I will compare it my Metronome probably next week. Big price difference between my CEC and the CEC TL3N though. If I had to pick a transport right now it would be the CEC new TL 3 3.0. CEC has a reputation of being a excellent transport and the company has been around for many years with good product support. To me if the Jays was close to the Metronome and the CEC TL3N was better that the Metronome, so that is were my opinion comes from.
BTW I have heard the CXC, NuPrime and Sim Audio transports and to me my old CEC TL5100z was preferred by a group of people who heard it. I have also used a Rega Apollo and Saturn as a transport with excellent results so that would be an option for an inexpensive transport option.
Also the person with the Jays Audio transport I believe also owned a PS Audio transport so maybe he will comment on the differences between those two transports.
Happy Listening.
