Bang For Your Buck Best Value CD Transport

Matchstikman, I actually had my Pioneer 563A modded by Audience...essentially changed all the caps with Auricaps and all the wiring with Audience hookup wire, and a few other parts replaced (no re-design of the player, just upgraded a variety of parts)...and the performance improved significantly. Still not up to where the Empirical S7700 is at, but it made a $150 player sound like a more expensive one, and the transport section was improved too.

I forgot to mention I also had a Sony DVP-S7000 at home. It was said to better it's successor the 7700.Only option the 7700 offered over the 7000 was DTS at the time. I listened to it only through it's audio outputs. Extremely unimpressive in this area.Cold,sterile with highs that could cut. I'm sure as a transport it was much better. Never got a chance to try it though. I sold the unit the following week.The expense of replacing the transport mechanism in this player is highway robbery.Sony really sticks it to ya! ;-)

sony dvp-s7000 and dvp-s7700

excellent transports and can be had cheap

cal audio delta is a great unit for about 250/300 but you have to treat is as a consumable since the transport is proprietary and cal audio is long gone

I think that the Stello CDT-200 is a great value for its $1,500.00 list price. It was so much better than my Theta Data Basic II that I couldn't listen to it anymore and sold it.

I didn't buy the Stello though, because the ONE thing it didn't do as well as the Theta was throwing a deep soundstage, and I wanted that. If you look at my system, I have all of that now, but with a $5,300.00 transport.

Check out the reviews:
1. www.stereotimes.com/CD040905.stml
2. http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/stello/stello.html

Chuck

I once owned the Audio Alchemy pro transport, I think the last one they made. It had a separate power supply and a Pioneer turntable. Sounded great with the DACs I paired it with. Only thing different was the CD was played shiney side up. If I were looking for a transport on a serious budget this would be my first choice. If you could fine in nice condition it would be a great value.