A phenomenal new CD transport-Pro-Ject CD Box RS2 transport


I have had in-house for the last week Pro-Ject's new CD Box RS2 transport to review for the website Stereo Times. I was very curious to assess its performance because it uses the Pro 8 drive with the Blue Tiger CD-84 servo card. This drive was developed and built by StreamUnlimited a company started by the original Phillips designers that historically built the finest CD mechanisms. Only two other companies use the StreamUnlimited 8 drive and Blue Tiger CD-84 servo card, their pieces cost $16,000 and $39,000 compared to Pro-Ject's sane price of $3,000!

My reference for the last two years has been the excellent Jay's Audio MK-II transport that had out-performed much more expensive highly regarded transports in my system. Well, across every sonic parameter  (transparency/micro-details-overall dynamics/bottom-end extension/purity of tonality- a much more airy sound-stage with wonderful 3D imaging) compared to the Jay's Audio transport.

That's way I titled this thread a "phenomenal new CD transport" because while not inexpensive, it just might be a bargain based on its performance. Mind you, this superlative level of performance is based on using the switching power supply that Pro-Ject ships the transport with. I have shortly coming a custom 20 watt 3 amp linear power supply from Linear Tube Audio and Pro-Ject's own upgraded power supply to see if the RS2 transport performance will even go to a higher qualitative level of performance.

I'll be writing a full detailed review for Stereo Times in the near future. However, I wanted to share this information to GON members who still spin CDs. I have had numerous CD transports in for evaluation and this just might be the best sounding of all of them.

Teajay (Terry London)




amorstereo
well since I received the rs2t 3 weeks ago I added the project 4 way uni power supply a week later, very nice improvement all around. so last week I built a 20v dc power cable and the parts came from vh audio, again very nice improvement . today I added a fuse in the power supply [ hifi tuning supreme silver] it brought it up another level . this transport is unbelievable the more you upgrade it the more it likes it. unbelievable machine. 
@kully560,

The I2S on my unit doesn't appear to work.  The cable worked fine with the Jay transport.  Has anyone had a similar issue, and if so were you able to correct it and how?  BTW it sounds very good using a Black Cat digital coaxial cable. 

Has anybody compared the SQ using I2S, coaxial, AES/EBU?

Thanks
@lrm1jaf  I think the I2s is only for Pro-Ject’s corresponding DAC. That, or it only works with DAC of a certain i2s configuration, as there are like four different ways i2s output can be configured…
 The Denafrips Terminator has a function to set the configuration of the i2s input to accept from different sources… But again, I believe the one on this unit is for Pro-Ject use only. 
Since this Pro-Ject RS2 Transport is so incredibly good...it has me thinking that I need to try the matching DAC.  Has anybody here heard the Pro-Ject Prebox RS2 DAC ?  Personally I am not a big fan of sabre based dacs but considering the project dac has 4 6922 tubes that can be engaged using the remote plus various filters it has me curious to try it out.  It's the only dac that you can connect via the transports IS2 connection.  If anybody here has heard this combo please chime in and give us your thoughts.