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

Ridiculous. What brands are you referring to?? Only brands that you cant get a discount for or not much of one is a Ultra Boutique brand that only has 1 Distributor and single digit dealers.  All the names that everybody knows there is almost always a 40% Markup and 50-60% on Demo Gear. Plenty of room to get a good deal without much effort. Once you establish yourself as a solid customer (repeat business) you will start getting calls FROM the dealers asking you if you want X Product for a good price. Then there's always the brands that "purge" their old stock to dealers for a ridiculous price and you can steal stuff that is brand new for 50% off MSRP.  Obviously you arent getting those calls so you have no idea what Im talking about.

@charles1dad:

"Well I can see it both ways.

1, Better price  but no audition period or option to return the component. 

2,  Higher price but includes ability to home audition and return for what ever reason. 

Just depends on the buyer's personality and disposition."

Exactly!  

@jayctoy:

Years ago I bought a few footers and cables recommended by a guy at M. Direct, which, to my ears, did nothing for my system. I returned them and in response, MD informed me that should I ever buy from them again, they would levy a 20% restocking fee. I can understand such a policy when someone orders a very expensive, exotic unit and returns it but in a case such as mine, no.  

If this makes me a "tire kicker", so be it but consider that since then, I've bought a DAC, a transport, three pair of ICs, two digital cables, two power cables, a headphone amp, three sets of Symposium Rollerblock Jr+'s and three Symposium shelves. None of this gear was purchased from M. Direct. When I upgrade my speakers in January, M. Direct will not be involved. Seems to me, their focus is on one-time buyers. I prefer to maintain long-term relationships with dealers who understand that I may make a mistake now and then and return something (which occurs very infrequently) but that I will keep coming back. Audio Art Cables and The Cable Co. are stellar examples and TMR are on their way to becoming another go-to dealer for me.   

In case anyone is interested, an open box RS2T just popped up here: 

So, I've beed following this and other Pro-Ject CD Box threads. What I have read convinced me to purchase one. I ordered last Sunday from Upscale Audio (terrific customer service, btw). They promptly shipped, and I awaited a Friday delivery. 

It arrived! I rushed home from work, doing my best to obey speed limits and full stops at stop signs. Took about 20 minutes to set-up. Tete Montoliu in the tray. First impressions-Incredible!

PRAT-best I have experienced

Depth of the soundstage.

The speakers disappear. 

Attack and decay-wow!

Presence and the "weight" of the instruments-the space between instruments has dimensionality. I am in the room with the musicians. 

The drums have full presence. And this is just one CD out of the box.

Compared to my Cambridge transport (which is very good at its price point), what an upgrade!

If you all could see the smile on my face.

Stay tuned...

Isn’t it interesting how great some things can sound ‘right out of the box’. Always give your system two days after unplugging moving and plugging in cables and power cords. The majority of what you know from your system will return by then…and then the nice ‘normal’ level of positive changes (level depending on what one is swapping from and to what) will show up 👍

@longinc - I bought the unit you mentioned below earlier today from Tmraudio.com. Didn’t see your link until now. I also bought an open box “Pro-Ject Power Box RS Linear Power Supply Black - For Single Unit” a couple of hours ago from audioadvisor.com.

The Pro-Ject Power Box RS Linear Power Supply Black - For Single Unit sells for $540.00. I see a few folks here opted for the four unit output linear power supply, which goes for $799.00. I saved quite a bit on the open box one.

“In case anyone is interested, an open box RS2T just popped up here:

https://tmraudio.com/components/cd-sacd-players/pro-ject-cd-box-rs2-t-cd-transport-remote-open-box/“

@sfseay 

Congratulations!!

I believe that you'll be very happy with this superb sounding transport. 

Charles 

Just received my new (open box) Pro-Ject CD Box RS2 T with Pro-Ject Linear Power Supply.  It has been about three years since I have had a full time CD player in my system.  It sounds fantastic connected via AES/ABU to my PS Audio Directstream DAC.

The last player I used in my system was an Oppo BDP-103.  Sound stage is much bigger, better defined bass and much better dynamics.

One more vote for this awesome CD player!

One more vote for this awesome CD player!

Agree! And congratulations. 

Charles 

Congrats on your transport, it's a wonderful device...

😁

I'm getting anxious to hear this transport having the Holo May KTE. I ordered mine this past summer. Expected date to arrive is now March 18th 2022.

So now I'm most unhappy regarding my delivery date from AA.

Looks like I'll be making some phone calls tomorrow. 

@desalvo55 

Checkout Underwood Hifi and Upscale Audio as one of them may possibly have a unit available. 

Charles 

A question for those of you who have the RS2; have you found not being able to program tracks to be an issue at all? I am very much intrigued by the reports of its sound quality, I am just not sure that I could do without the ability to program tracks. Seems like a glaring omission to me.

1:58pm

A question for those of you who have the RS2; have you found not being able to program tracks to be an issue at all?

I don't know about how others feel but for "me"  a non important feature. My listening pattern is playing the complete CD all the through. I could however  see where this feature matters to someone else. 

Charles 

I have no issue with not being able to program tracks.  Not sure I would ever use that feature if it was included.  If I didn’t want to hear a track I would just skip to the next track I wanted to hear.

@jaymark and @charles1dad   I am between the Jay's Audio CD2 Mk3 and the Project.   However, did anyone compare the NEW 2019 Jay's Audio CD2 Mk3 rather than the prior model Mk2?   Steve Guttenberg reviewed them both and found significant improvement in the Mk3 version sonically.   How close are they now as the Jay's is $2500 and the Project with LTA power is closer to $4,000 (with taxes)?

@fleschler 

Get in touch with @wig via Audiogon email. He had the  Jay's Audio CDT2 MK 3 version prior to getting the Pro-Ject RS2 transport. 

Charles 

Does anyone have an issue with the remote for the Project.  My remote only communicates with the transport when I'm within 5 feet.  I replaced the battery and no change.

My listening seat is abou 14 feet from the location of the Pro-Ject and I've had no problems. 

Charles 

I have no issue with the remote either.  It does need to be pointed directly at the unit though.

I had this happen once with a piece during a demo period. You had to be no farther than 7ft away and no farther than a 10 or 20 degree angle from the receiver… Unfortunately I didn’t hear about a fix after that but one thing you could try is to make sure that both remote and receiver on the unit are clean and with no crumbs of something obstructing the signal, if that’s even a thing for this type of signal. 

The remote isn’t great. I often have to go press buttons twice. 
It’s a minor point for me though given the astonishing sound quality. 

@ridoves 

+1. I'd give the remote a grade of B for functionality.   The CD transport gets an A+ for sound quality. 

Charles 

I am seriously looking at buying the Pro-ject Cdt based on all the great feedback from owners on this thread.  Here's  my question: I was originally going to put alot more of my budget into a DAC and spend about $500 - $1000 on the transport.  With a total budget of $5k - $6k does it make sense to get the Pro-ject  or spend the bulk of the budget on the dac?

@bobheinatz

The CD transport is your source component as it preceeds the DAC in your signal chain. There are those who will say any decent CD player/transport will be fine as it’s only about the 1s and 0s. I vehemently disagree with this shallow and superficial mindset.

The higher the quality and thus competency of the vital CD transport, the better the resultant sound quality. I strongly believe that it’d be pennywise and pound foolish to go skimp on the transport by thinking only the DAC matters. They both matter. An argument could be  made that the transport (source) is equally as important as the DAC if not in fact more so.

Attention paid to a solidly constructed CD spinning mechanism that seriously addresses vibration management is very crucial.  Cheaper budget transports won't offer the same degree of attention or implementation (You have to cut corners somewhere to keep it inexpensive).

My advice is to buy the best quality CD transport you can comfortably afford. I don’t believe that you’d ever 2nd guess this decision. The many positive testimonies in regard to the Pro-Ject CD Box RS2 transport in this thread are accurate. As noted before, it is small in form factor (By design) but huge in its sonic performance. Excellent with the standard wall wart power supply and clearly improved if one uses an optional linear power supply. My 2 cents worth.

Charles

I don't own the Project but 100% agree with Charles about the improvement in SQ with better transports. I went from a fairly competent Cambridge CXC to a Simaudio 260D and the improvement was quite noticeable.

Thanks Charles & Facten.

I received my RS2 transport a few days ago. I'll give you my initial impressions (well, mine and my wife's).

Out of the box, I was ready to send it back. Pretty disappointed really. At the same time, I didn't have a solid cable option nor did I have a LPS but dang this box had no bass and sounded entirely disjointed. It felt like an amplifier or cable that needed severe maturing, but for some reason I dismissed that. I mean, it a Transport right?

So I figured it was placement and cable issue. I don't have many options, no AES cable so I substituted a very good balanced cable, the right one I think... I got a generic optical and a Coax from long ago, but a good one.

Next day it still sounded weird but a few songs played well. Wife liked Jesse Cook but Frank Duval was lifeless and completely uninvolving. I was also disappointed that Pro-jects i2s doesn't mean i2s in the Holo May world. I use a Holo May KTE and tried all 4 configurations. No bueno. 

It was further troubling that there are so many audio stars in this thread, teajay, Charles1dad and others, that have such a positive "spin" on this transport. What am I missing?

There was something else though. Behind the confusion of the music there appeared to be a lot more information emanating from the silver box compared to my stellar streamer system, which was was destroying the RST-2 in sound quality. I had moved the RST-2 to maple but didn't get a sense of improvement. Maple was game changing on my Lindemann Musicbook.

Day 3. What happened? I now had lower end. Music had become organized. Textures were being realized and space now had a representation of location. But way more than that. There is a palpable suddenness, an explosion of sounds that come so fast that it takes us by surprise. I look at the Allnic and say, "you little devil you, you're a part of bringing what the RS2 has brung". I would say that there's not the accurate front to back layering (room issue?) I had experienced with the very best of systems and perhaps a not so smoothness, digital glare maybe, whatever the heck that is. But here I am with perhaps not the best cable that my system deserves given where my system is at. Now my streamer is nervous, very nervous. Who's this new kid in town?

So we sat and replayed Duval and other CD's that basically sucked @ day one. 20 hours in it's is a completely different sonic picture.

Busy in the yard, busy at a picnic, today I wanted to spin more discs. I want to hear even more. My CD collection is not only reinvigorated, it's looking forward to more friends.

OK so I'm going to ask, which one of you, or all of you, thought the RST-2 sounded good out of the box? Am I the only malcontent?

Thanks to the forum members for putting me on the right - track.

@desalvo55

Thanks for sharing your early listening impressions of the RS2T. I’m glad you stuck with it, gave it a few days and avoided an impulsive conclusion. Well I for one can honestly say that my out-of-the-box listening impression was terrific! Within the first 30 minutes of listening I recognize it was better sounding than my cherished P.S. audio PWT. It clearly improved within just a few hours of play.

And this was realized using the standard wall wart power supply. It’s only got better with additional hours of use. When I added a LPS, another noticeable step up from an already high performance level. I’m glad to read  ythat you are very pleased with this CD transport. It is fantastic as far as I am concerned.

Charles

It seems like us Audiophiles learn and relearn about break-in over and over again in the forums. But it’s still always good to see:)  
If we had an audiophile rules 101, I’d want *do not evaluate or draw conclusions about a new out-of-the-box component at all for at least 48 hours. 

It’s now 2022 !

I to am thinking about getting a really good (yet somewhat affordable) CDT - so how are we all getting on with our choices here. Is the Pro-Ject still king of the hill? Is it still performing above and beyond or are we all getting complacent with it?

There’s also a stupendously good review on a very budget CDT - the Audiolab 6000 CDT here: I doubt it’s in the same league though whatever the review.

Great video on the Audiolab.  It would be great if someine has compared the 6000t with the pro-ject.

Got rid of my Audiolab cdt....did not care for it, and it was much too large for what it does... I think my Marantz hdcd1 sounds better and it is only 12 x 12 inches...Also have a brand new yet to set up Cyrus cdt....looks to be a quality unit. It too is quite compact.

I received the LTA power supply last week and fresh out of the box we found it profoundly different than the stock switcher. We did find the stock switching power supply very good. It has its strengths.

The midrange became the focal point with vocals being very convincing and especially smooth. Dynamics lacked but being a power supply, it needed seasoning. 

Im at the twenty hour mark and the LTA is really opening up. The Pro-hectic really is showing what it is capable of against my very good streaming system. I haven’t gone back and A-B’d as I’m waiting for a AES/BU cable (Audio Envy) to show up. I ordered the wrong version - coax- and although sounded very good considering it is not broken in, I wish for the former and a longer length as well.

A few days ago a received a set of Townsend foot pods. They are intended for my phonostage, but first tried them under my May KTE DAC. Not a noticeable improvement vs the maple, I tried them under the maple that holds the Pro-next and the LTA. That was a noticeable improvement. More space, greater separation, just more of everything. 

The footers are still going under my phonostage but I may order a set of the foremention footers in this thread or the Lessloss bindbenders (may have spelled that wrong). Predictably, the CD transport plays better with appropriate damping.