Bad CDP but good transport?

Hello Rgs92,
I am down to basic :-), I use their cheap model, CDSA-SE. I choose it because it sounds very good with regular CD's (it is ok with SACD, too), but in a way I think, the best sounding Mass market CD's were made in the area of 1985-1995 (plus/minus a few years). IMO of course.

Syntax, is that the XDS1 you have?
Somehow the XDS1 coaxes some magic out of disks I thought were so hideously mastered I almost tossed them (but the hoarder in me made me hold on to them). The XDS1 has a Midas touch and spins them into gold.

Tiofelon, DVD players are bad CDPs but have pretty good transport.

In the last 12 years I owned several CD Systems, mainly separate ones, Transports from Goldmund, dCS, CEC, Wadia...with separate Dacs.
At that time I thought that is the way to go but when I made a comparison and something was better from sonics, the Transport was not able to rescue my Digital Hardware.
I think, digital quality is mainly based on the internal processors, the brain inside and how it was done. I sold all these units some time ago and went to a 1-Box Design from EMM Labs and it good enough that I can listen to it for some time. In a way for me the best Digital decision I made all over the years.

The real secret in enjoying Digital Playback is the Mastering of the Disk you like. There are the most differences, a good 44.1 can give you more pleasure than the same in transferred SACD (or HDCD...). No transport can improve a weak Master ( using Laser clocking and so on in the process...CD was a mass market product and in the last years it became cheap and worse...) to a good sounding one.

The unit I had was a Tascam CD player/recorder, midlevel, about $400. Built like a tank. I ran it through a variety of DACS and it sounded good. Tascam is known in the industry for reliable machines.

I would be interested in further discussion of Tgrisham's point regarding professional cdp/recorders with superb transports. Anyone else have experience with such? Brands? Models? TIA

Hi Tiofelon,

yes, for example the old TEACs VRDS 7/9/10..IMO

Best regards,

Some professional CDP/Recorders are rock solid transports but so-so players because the DACs are inexpensive. The money goes into the transport mechanism. I have owned them but found my regular CDP was as good a transport so I sent it back.