I think your bottleneck is the NAD on-board DAC. Not sure why you need a cd transport but you are probably not maximizing the performance of your N100C by running it into that NAD. Better investment would be a better integrated amp and an external DAC. Or at least an external DAC for time being.
Aurender Music Server and CD Transport comparison
I am in the market for a CD transport and I want it to sound as good as my Aurender N100C. How far up the chain do I have to go to get sound that is equal or better than my Aurender? My choice so far is a Jay's Audio CDT2 Mk3 but could I go to an Audiolab transport like the 9000CDT? Should I go as high as the Jay's Audio CDT3-Mk3 I don't want to spend anymore money than I have to since the more I spend the more I get diminishing returns.
The system is Aurender, NAD M2 Digital amp, B & W 805 D4 standmounts.
30 responses Add your response
"How far up the chain do I have to go to get sound that is equal or better than my Aurender?" No one can answer that question. Sound quality is subjective. There's just way too many variables to give an accurate response. You have to listen to it.
I would give The Cable Company a call. They should be able to send you a few to demo. You can also experiment with equipment you already own, like a CD or DVD player. If they have a digital out, as most do, try them. It should give you some idea as what to expect. There's another solution you may want to consider. Take whatever you have for a budget, and buy a less expensive transport. Use the rest to buy a re-clocker. Those can make a nice difference especially if you are using different brands for your transport and dac.
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I think you all are missing the point. Ok. lets change the parameters as I actually have two systems. In my first system I have Herron Line Stage, Herron Mono Blocks, I am in the market for a CD transport and I want it to sound as good as my Aurender N100C. How far up the chain do I have to go to get sound that is equal or better than my Aurender? The rest of the downstream in irrelevant to the question what transport equals or betters the Aurender within a reasonable price point.If you don't know you don't know. I am asking people that do know. Very typical here and on other forums. I ask for an apple and you all tell me I need an orange. Somebody knows the answer and that is who I am waiting for.
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I went to look at the posted system for the OP and didn't find one. It helps to provide as much information as you can about the system you have to get good answers. There will always be ones who give recommendations that don't address the question and there will always be ones who post without giving enough information for recommendations. |
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Both Jays and Pro-ject are commonly cited as top echelon transports.
Having said that one of my earlier, less resolving streaming setups beat the Mark Levinson No. 37 cd transport I was using at the time. ML used Phillips Pro laser/transport mechanism, top notch power supply and proprietary mounting system for the Phillips Pro.
If you are judging streams only I could see a transport rivaling the streams, I have over 3500 cd rips played via NAS with LPS which continue to beat out streams for SQ.
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@sns - comments are spot on. Other options are CEC Tl-2X not in current production but an excellent sounding transport. The Pro-ject was the best sounding transport we tried. Older options are the Marantz CD-93 (I think that is the model number or CD-84) and then an older Metronome. Not sure what they offer today. They are build very well and offer a very musical sound. Happy Listening. |
If you expect tracks on your CD’s and whatever version of an album/track is on the streaming service(s) you may be using to sound the same, that’s an equation no one anywhere is gonna have an answer for.
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I recommend the Jays transport. The Pro-ject I would be leery of at the present time simply because of the quality control issues happening now,not because of sound quality. I bought a Jays several months ago and it was a much bigger upgrade than expected.The instrument separation,clarity,and smoothness is way beyond what I'd hoped for. |
I'm afraid that I can't provide a good answer to your question but I have some experience that might be helpful. I have a Jay's CD3 MKIII transport as well as a Teac VRDS 701. Before these I had a PSA PerfectWave Transport. I also have two DACs; a Berkeley Audio Reference Series II MQA with the Alpha USB and an Audio Mirror Tubadour IV. I stream using Qobuz through my ASUS ROG laptop into the Alpha USB/Reference II. I have over 4K CDs that I have ripped to uncompressed FLAC. I usually play the CD because I'm a geezer who likes physical media (I also play LPs). I have found that origin of digital music doesn't seem to make much difference in the sound. My two transports sound similar if not identical and when I compare a CD with the corresponding file on Qobuz I am hard pressed to tell the difference. If my PC is mangling the sound or adding noise I can't hear it. Someday I'll replace my PC with a streamer but I'm not going to spend a lot of money because I don't expect streamed music to sound better than playing a CD through one of my transports. From a technical standpoint it's hard to understand how a digital file that has been sliced and diced through the tortuous journey of the internet can sound better than playing a CD on a state of the art transport. I have two transports because they have some significant differences. I have a collection of HDCDs and the Jay's Audio uses dither in the LSB where the HDCD information resides. My Berkeley decodes HDCDs so I need a different transport to play them. It also has MQA and it takes a special transport to play an MQA CD. The Teac transport passes all 16 bits cleanly and it will do the first unfold on an MQA CD and the Berkeley DAC does the rest. I am at the age where I'm trying to do my last upgrade on each component. I had a horrible experience with the PSA transport which used a cheapo computer grade drive ($15 cd drive in a $4000 transport?) which failed repeatedly. I vowed that I would never buy another transport unless the manufacturer clearly stated what cd mechanism they were using. The Jay's uses the final generation of the Phillips transport and the Teac uses their own VRDS mechanism. Both of these transports will likely have a longer life than I will. I can recommend either of these transports. The Jay's Audio is a sexy piece of gear. It is beautifully finished and the sliding door on top of the unit has a very nice feel. I love using it. It also upsamples to 176 kHz which can sound better on some DACs. The Jay's has several outputs including I2S so it can easily be hooked up to more than one DAC. The Teac is also very nice and if you think you might want to play MQA CDs it has that capability. It only has one Coax output. Bottom line - in my experience the transport probably isn't going to be a big factor in whether or not a CD sounds better than your streamer. But if you play a fair amount of CDs the transport is the component that you most interact with. It is also the most prone to breakdown. For these reasons I am an advocate of buying the nicest transport you can afford. Pride of ownership is a big factor in this hobby and a good, smooth, quiet, reliable transport is a joy to use. |
Well said 8th-note and I concur. Different strokes for different folks. I for one place a great emphasis on playing CD's simply because I enjoy it. Like pulling a book from a library. Knowing this, I went through three different transports in three years (Hegel and Moon previously). I finally said "enough" and to reference 8th-note, bought the nicest transport I could afford knowing it was a front end I use daily. Bought a new Audio Note CDT-II/2 last year and haven't looked back. |
@8th-note 100% correct concerning the PS Audio transport. While PS Audio has great customer service, this is a piece of junk I tried DVD players and CD players (15) when I first got a DAC four years ago and PS Audio was awful sounding, worst of all. Great concept ruined by a terrible transport (to start with). I intend to purchase the Jay’s Audio CD3 MK3 as well. In the meantime, I’m using a radically upgraded Arcam Delta 250 transport with rebuilt boards, power caps, etc. Even the resistor fuse was upgraded. It uses a BNC out. An amazing unit with the famous CM9 transport (I have two backup drives). Due to purchasing a Von Schweikert VR9 SE MK2 this week, I will wait to purchase/try the Jay’s. My audio equipment dealer said if it isn’t adequate for me, he would pay full price from me for it. I don’t want to purchase the Pro-Ject because it is so chintzy requiring a separate power supply to achieve high end quality. I now have 14,500+ CDs and 28,000 LPs. Love both formats. Stream only to sample recordings I don’t own. |
PS Audio's "newer" model transport the Perfectwave sacd does not use the same Oppo Digital cd drive. Because Oppo Digital stopped producing them. Kind of hard to honor a warranty when the replacement parts no longer exist. The newer transport uses a Phillips drive, a Sound United LLC who bought D+M Group then goes back to Marantz buying Phillips in 2001. I "heard" that PS Audio was to release a brand new transport, but for some reason that was put on hold. That sounds strange considering their latest version is only 3 or maybe 4 years old? I own the "older" version of their transport with the Oppo drive and from what I've read here I guess I'm very lucky because I've had no problems what so ever. Maybe because I don't use it daily. I used a PS Audio DAC for a few years the DrectStream original DAC not their latest the MK2. For the past 2 years I've been using a Terminator Plus DAC. I was curious about the R2R DACs, so I picked one up. I'd also like to try the Mola Mola DAC from what I've read and heard it's top notch for it's price.
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The PerfectWave Transport that I owned used an off-the-shelf computer grade drive. I forgot what brand it was but this information is available on PSA's forum. If you were willing to take the unit apart you could replace the drive with a standard $15 CD drive from Amazon. I don't know if other PSA models used an Oppo drive but the PerfectWave Transport certainly didn't (unless Oppo used an off-the-shelf rotgut computer drive that is not designed to spin music CDs). I may be wrong about this but I'm pretty sure that Oppo didn't make their own drive. There are only a few companies that manufacture CD drives that are designed for playing music. Phillips, Teac, Marantz, and a couple others. Most of the companies making CD players and transports source their drives from one of these manufacturers. The fact that PSA bought the cheapest drive they could find - one that was designed to spin up, read data, and spin down - instead of playing music for hour after hour, is unforgivable.. When PSA would no longer support the unit I decided to replace the drive myself (three drives had failed by then). The procedure was clearly spelled out in a PSA forum thread but it required the use of all-thread screws which you could get from PSA. I wrote an email but got no answer so I called and the guy told me that they no longer supported this model. I told him that I would put a new drive in myself but I needed the all-thread screws. He told me that they no longer had them. I said, "OK, then just tell me the specifications of the screws and I will buy them myself." He refused to even give me the specs on the screws. Needless to say, I will never purchase anything from PS Audio again. Ever. |
Just a follow up to my original post. Those who say upgrade the DAC have no clue what the NAD M2 amplifier is. It is a DAC on steroids. It is purely digital built in collaboration with Diodes Zetex. Since it only sold for one year, I doubt anybody here has actually heard it. For @2psyop the Audiogon detective go to my Instagram and look at the photos of my two systems. Satisfied? I had the Herron/Tetra in my condo but took it to my cabin where there is more room and sounds a lot better. The smaller system is now in my condo. I did try the transport in my cabin system but I already have an Audiolab CD player and my Rega RP7 turntable. In the end I purchased a Primare DD35. I am still on the fence if I like it. The build quality is top notch but the sound is different than my Aurender. It is a little bass heavy that I am not fond of. A/B testing between the CD and a FLAC file is quite noticeable. In hindsight I think I needed to put more money into a transport to better the Aurender. Live and learn. |
A lot of you seem to be using products that have Oppo transports. Is it the same drive as used in the Oppo 103/5 203/5 blu-ray players? If so I highly suggest checking out Oppomod.com as they sell a stabilizer plate mod kit for those drives. The improvement was pretty incredible with disc playback. It’s a fully cnc machined kit that just bolts onto the top frame of the drive, which usually is easily accessible in most transports. |
My experience is that a pretty decent CD player used as a transport only or a CD transport into a really nice DAC outperforms the servers into the same DAC. I use the Aurender with my music burned onto the internal hard drive, listen to the same music streamed via the Aurender. not much change at all. But streamed via Qobuz sounds better. However, when I use my CD transport into my DAC with the same music, it definitely sounds better. match levels, play the same music and listen. There are definitely differences. Don't get me wrong. The Aurender streamed into my DAC, sounds great. The Aurender playing from the hard drive into my DAC ounds great. The CD transport into my DAC sounds better. Depends on how lazy I am. However, if I'm really not lazy, turntable into the phono stage sound best. enjoy |
wwe are an nad dealer the m2 was decent but nowhere as good as the newer models like the m33 as per a transport I would look at an Atoll dr 200 transport which uses a superbly built cd transport from Teac so parts are easily sourced Digital signal isolation with a specific 1:1 transformer dedicated to S/PDIF and AES/EBU outputs.
Dave and Troy audio intellect NJ NAD and atoll dealers
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