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The anachronistic CD Transport? And do I really need one.

CD Transports.

This is a machine that in my early audiophile days I could not afford. I appreciated, philosophically the advantages of it. Thinking of this device in 2021 seems strange. Yet they still exist and, maybe more importantly, they are still manufactured.

Just a few years ago (I dunno...maybe 2015) I remember thinking Redbook CD sounded great with the right DAC, and underlying system of course. But today, I don’t know this to be true. It is starting to seem that the compact disc is riding in the third row of the vehicle, with vinyl and non-cd-digital vying back and forth, musically for the driver’s seat.

So, my listening habits are

Vinyl 65% of the time
Digital 40%
CD 5%

I do have a small collection of CDs. They are things that I cannot easily or actually hear on other mediums.

I have a great DAC and it made an old (2005) Rotel CD player sound pretty good. The Rotel CD player's remote is dead with no easy replacement, and it does have progressive optical reading disease--...it drops in and out with less than perfectly clean discs.

Can you please evaluate the following options for me? Or tell me to piss off!

1. Buy a Transport
2. Buy a CD player (maybe with SACD ability)
3. Dump the discs and stick with your better sounding vinyl and digital.
4. Are you insane for listing as no. 1 "Buy a Transport"? You must be old.

Fire away.
128x128jbhiller
madavid0
214 posts
 
I bought a transport from AliExpress for around $600, supposedly a Wadia clone circuit. It does have a tendency to overheat or something which causes it to stop playing and error out after some time. There's a newer version out with a better clock so maybe they fixes that issue I'd ask before buying.

In terms of quality it's clearly superior to my CD player (MHZS CD88J) if also used as a transport to the same DAC. Lower noise. It's roughly equal to my custom audio PC (linear PSU, battery-powered USB card, SSD isolation) for much less footprint and cost (the USB card, a Paul Pang V3 costs $450 by itself). But, obviously, a CD transport doesn't have the flexibility of the PC. Compared to my regular unconditioned PC it's on another planet of course, even when plugged into the PC's regular power strip. Works fine passing MQA-CD signals.

Also consider the belt-drive units from CEC.

Schiit is coming out with a transport soon and it's supposed to have a USB input which is a big deal IMO. It allows the use of high-end USB cables and conditioning and the use of a lot of MQA DACs with use for MQA-CD. Only a few DACs on the market support MQA decoding on the SPDIF input, most of them support it only on USB. 
mesch
3,394 posts
 
Another owner of the CXC. Quality player for the money. Would have to spend 3x the price for an improvement. 

speakermaster
738 posts
 
If you already have the dac try to find a real quality vintage transport to go with it or a quality used cd player with the correct digital out to feed the dac you have.
jbhiller's avatar
jbhiller OP
1,361 posts
 
I broke down and bought the Audiolab because I wanted to avoid repairs with older units. I can fix and amp, but a cd transport? Maybe, maybe not.
hshifi
572 posts
 
Hello,
I just went to my local Hifi store to check out some Rouge preamps and amps. They had a Sony CA777es CD player. It no longer plays SACDs. But the Redbook out of it was incredible. I have an Oppo 205 so I don’t really need it. They had it for $350 plus tax which sounds like a very good deal for a CD player with dog outs. https://holmaudio.com/  They do ship stuff. This component weighs quite a bit so it might be $40 to ship. Maybe I am not right about using it as a transport. The drawer was opening and closing smooth as silk and this sounded incredible. 
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