Jay's Audio CDT3 Mk3, i.e their latest offering. I run it always with the 174 Hz toggle to "on" with which the Holo May syncs just fine. The 174 HZ is at another level of articulation and smoothness for Redbook CD's. The synergy between the Jay's and my Holo Audio May Kitsune Level 3 is beautiful. The CDT3 MK3 is a real tank, and the Philips Laser Mechanism (CDPRO2 LF) is very well built and damped. This transport takes at least a hundred hours to break in - worth the wait. |
The beauty of the manual loading trays is that they don't wear out. The internal mechanism guiding the laser will though. Probably the optical unit itself will wear out first though. I would advise anyone just now buying a unit to purchase extra optical units. They can be found on Ebay and such, and there are Youtube videos showing how to replace. By the way, I am not suggesting that these Transports and DACs in the $5,000.00 range are equal in quality or performance to the units costing 2-5 times more. |
I have both the Jay's CDT2 Mk3 and CDT3 Mk3 - both good units. The most important thing I learned after graduating to these more capable players is that using good CD-R's (I am using "Maxell for Music" blanks) and using .wav files burned onto them at the "slow" speed on my desktop computer can make a big difference in sound quality. |
Stereophile Review of CDT3 Mk3 I suggest that everyone interested in this CD Transport read Atkinson's review. It was not at all unflattering, and the final note on bits was that engaging the 4x upsampler captured all the bits which is why I run in that mode. I can see why the manufacturer put an in-your-face toggle switch on the machine rather than try to use an array of buttons. This strategy tells the owner to "looky here" at this switch and try it. |
