CD Transport VS Streamer
If you've changed the source component CD transports and still have a sonic problem, it's likely that the problem lies further down the chain. Even though it may be within a single component, the CD transport and streaming are at some point separated into "2 different audio chains", so may likely be the source of the differences you are hearing. |
Thats hilarious. I double blind / tricked myself on accident and have been listening with tone controls for God knows how long and actually prefer it. Thats crazy. So much for being a purist. I always bragged about not needing tone controls and building my set-ups to sound awesome / full set to flat. Dang, what’s next? The Earth isn’t flat?? |
I figured it out. I tried 4 other sources and they all sounded more similar to the cxc than different, I went into my tone controls on my bluesound and turned them on snd heard no difference, which was strange because my bass and treble were up 6 db. I then shut the tone controls off and then it returned to flat. Turns out that whole time, my tone controls were on +6 db’s for treble snd bass and thats why I haf that big smiley face sounding eq. My friggin bluesound was glitchin out and said tone controls off abut they were on. I feel kind of stupid now because I was saying how much better it sounds, lol, and it turns out I had the bass and treble cranked up. Huh, I guess I just found out the importance of tone controls for me. Where’s Kenjit to revel in his wisdom? |
It could be that the Bluesound is generating a brighter sound with accentuated highs. The Audiolab and the Cambridge CXC could be producing a more neutral sound (yes, digital transports do not all sound the same). One additional reason could be due to the switching power supply on the Bluesound. Both the Audiolab and Cambridge appear to use fully linear power supplies. Burning in the CXC should help, but I'm not sure if it will produce more high frequencies. |
Nope, nope, the bluesound is far better... The only other thing I could try is a different digital coax cable. Thats the only thing I can think of at this point. The digi cable plays nice with the bluesound but not with the transports... I’ll try a different digi cable tomorrow and if it doesn’t change the highs and lows then she’s going back 🤷🏼 |
Man, Im all over this already... its on rollers with added weight on top. I might be misinterpreting the rolled off highs and lows. The CXC may be cleaner and less distorted. The bluesounds bass is starting to sound bloated in comparison. I did a cable swap but no difference. I’m going to go do some more listening the cxc right now snd see if I’m still feeling the same way. I did some a/b comparison videos so I could a/b quicker. I did that yesterday and then again just now. Its interesting that in both instance, the cxc sounded better than the bluesound. I’m going to drive myself crazy on this one, lol |
Bruce, trying a CDP is a good next move. Regarding jitter, one of the reasons for designing the transport only devices is to reduce jitter (compared to a digital out on the back of a common CDP). If the CXC had a jitter problem I think it would have been exposed on this forum. Btw, I'm using a Cullen C7 PC on my Node2i. One piece of advice I can give you from experience is that the transport must have good isolation, either through decoupling or vibration control. You can't fully control jitter if there's vibration. This probably isn't related to your issue, but my PS Audio transport played back so smoothly after isolating it from the shelf. |
@lowrider57 , what a coincedance you mention that... I’m wondering if the power supply on the node is fine with a crap little cord but that the cxc needs better. I’ve got a crap power strip plugged into a crap a/c outlet (for both the bluesound and the cxc, so no difference). I’ve got my amp and dacplugged directly into the wall (porter port) with Cullen Crossover snd Cullen Gold PC’s. I have another Cullen cable coming and also a Pass & Seymour outlet for that other crap outlet... I stillwould think that stock cords, plugged into a stockoutlet, the cxc should outperform the node. I’ve tried toslink and coax out of the cxc. I would also think that the cxc wouldn’t have more jitter than the bluesound 🤷🏼. The only 2 things it could be now are insufficient clean power going to the cxc or more jitter in the cxc. It’s so strange because no one would think that my cxc and gungir multibit sound good, yet I’ve got to believe that domeone else here is thrilled with that set-up. I’m almost certain though that a good cd player running analogue out into my amp will sound much better than the cxc into my gungir, which shouldn’t be the case at all either. I’m going to see if I can demo a decent to good cd player tomorrow from one of b&m’s here. |
Bruce, I can't understand your findings, although I believe you. The Node has a small power supply vs. a good sized toroid in the CXC. The transport should be playing back music with authority across the spectrum. Are these two components on the same AC circuit? Are they running through power conditioning? |
If you like Bluesound, then just stick with it. Many people prefer ripped files to files actively extracted from a spinning CD. I would avoid the Vault2 and just stick with the Node. That way you won’t lose your files when the Bluesound units die. Also, if you decide eventually to get a costlier and better sounding streamer than Bluesound you will find it easier to move your files if they aren’t stuck on the Vault. If your Node does dies after a few years And you really want another you can pay for it with savings achieved by buying the Node instead of the Vault |
No ideas left, except maybe it’s a faulty CXC. As I found the opposite to what you hear between A/Bing streaming and a cd transport. A real guru on digital hooking up was a guy named Joko Homo a telecommunications genius, who is also an audio nuter, a real pita with attitude that had him banned from many forums including diyAudio. He said bad "jitter" introduced from spdif outputs and/or inputs, and cable impedance, type of connection also the length linking the two, it’s important to get the impedances right of all three or you get digital reflections that cause the "jitter" and manifests itself in sound by softening and rolling off the highs. Cheers George |
Hi George, I just tried a toslink... wasn’t that. I’ve actually been using the same cable and power cord between the node and the cxc so now discrepancies there. Is it possible that the signal coming from Amazon (Or any other service, tidal, qobuz) is of better quality than a cd? I’m not talking high res, which is superior, but regular cd redbook quality tracks on Amazon being better than the actual cd? I thought I remember reading that ripped cd’s can sound better than the original cd, which makes no sense at all to me. But yeah, the difference between the cxc and bluesound is pretty big. The bluesound has far more bass as well. More of a smiley face eq’d sound. The Bluesound eq is off by the way. The cxc may have better mids or it may just be my brain convincing me of this because the cxc should sound better. I have a cheapo cd player that I have put in rotation a few times just to see if that transport sounds different and it does. The highs aren’t as rolled off but the soundstage isn’t as good and the sound is harder and thinner. I’m actually a bit surprised that ghe transport link in my chain is making such a noticeable difference. I would have thought they’d all be closer in terms of sound considering that I’m using the same dac and cables between everything. I’ve had the cxc on play non stop for 2 days now hoping that whatever caps are in the player just need to open up soundwise but I can’t tell any difference yet. I’m sitting here listening to the cxc right now and it does sound good but then I go to the bluesound and it goes from good to great. I hope next week I’m not raving about bose, sonos and cheap ear buds. Maybe my hearing is going |
The transport / cd should def sound better than the bluesound so I don’t know whats going on here. The highs on the cxc (and the cdt) are rolled off in comparison to the bluesound.Rolling off the highs??? this is strange Bruce, maybe it's the Spdif rca input on your dac or the CXC. Why don't you give the Toslink Optical a try from the CXC to the Dac. Cheers George |
I’m going to be doing a lot of listening a/b comparing today but it isn’t looking good for the cxc. The transport / cd should def sound better than the bluesound so I don’t know whats going on here. The highs on the cxc (and the cdt) are rolled off in comparison to the bluesound. a quick rundown of my setup... -Cullen crossover pc into an Anthem I225 with SR blue fuses -Cullen gold into a schiit gungir multibit -fritz carrera be on sturdy dyn stands ap solo crystal speaker cables, ap solo crystal xlr’s -treated room -amazon hd (only comparing non high res tracks. Im at a loss here. I want to have another source besides the bluesound but it can’t sound inferior. I started a thread awhile back about vinyl vs cd and decided to go cd mainly because of the cost of lp’s... not sure what to do here. I don’t want to spend $600on a transport that just sounds decent. I could grab any $200-$300 cd player with digi out and achieve that. ona side note, you can not get the cxc for $400 anymore. That was v1. All v2’s are $600 and to my knowledge are only aesthetically different from v1. If this transport were only $300 I’d probably just keep it. I’m seeing higher grade transports for $600-$1200 used but am concerned about how long they’d last being that most are already 5-10 years old. I was thinking Bluesound Vault but the comment about reliability has me concerned. Are there any transports used, in the $800-$1200 range that are going to be a step up from the cxc that have parts readily available if something happens? Thank You everyone for your help with this. Its much appreciated! |
The Vault is just the Node with added Functionality—it rips CDs and has a 2TB storage. Ripping couldn’t be easier-after adjusting the settings in goes the CD and a few minutes later out it comes. It isn’t a perfect ripper but as a ripper it bests my Bryston BOT, which I now just use as a CD transport. I actually use my Vault2 as a streamer only, as I had backed up the stored files to a NAS, and I had a Node2 in another system that died. And that is another issue with Bluesound—scan enough threads here and you will find many owners whose units have given up the ghost after a couple of years. My Node2 died about a week after warranty expired. Most CD transports will go for a decade at least until the laser craps out. I don’t know why you think the Node beats CD transports. We all hear differently. Rereading your original post, I am unsure where your files come from. Are you streaming from Tidal or another source? There may be other variables here |
@georgehifi, so what I’m hearing you say is the cxc is a better transport?Just from what I mentioned you get for your $, but then I have not A/B them. I was thinking about the digital coax cable as well.Any buddies have a good CD player/transport you can listen to on your system? As I said the CXC is a great "budget" transport, as with haggling you can get it in AU for $490aud that's $350USD Cheers George |
@georgehifi, so what I’m hearing you say is the cxc is a better transport? I was thinking about the digital coax cable as well. In my comparison between the node and the cxc I am using the same cable... I’d like to be able to get this sorted out on the cxc and keep it but if I can’t get it to match the bluesound I might return it. I will let it burn in some more. I have an upgraded pc coming from Patrick Cullen soon so with that, some burn in time and perhaps a different coax cable maybe I can get those highs to pop. Do you have any recommendations on a coax cord that will be more revealing? I am currently using a signal cable silver resolution... |
Do you think this cxc just needs to burn inQuality of the digital link cable maybe. George, I was comparing the innards of the CDT to the CXCAudiolabs insides, just a slot load "DVD rom drive" and no special servo's like the CXC says it's got. https://www.novusaudio.nl/files/merken/audiolab/audiolab-6000cdt/audiolab-6000-cdt-binnekant.jpg Cambridge CXC insides dedicated CD drive, and Cambridge's "special" servo? https://jam-media.com.ua/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Cambridge-Audio-CXC-3.jpg Cheers George |
Thanks everyone! I know, the transport should better the bluesound, thats why I’m at a loss here. Do you think this cxc just needs to burn in? I’m thinking about the vault. Is it a streamer as well? Whats the best way to rip files to the vault? I’m going to let the cxc play constantly for the next 2-3 days and see if it opens up on top. George, I was comparing the innards of the CDT to the CXC. To my untrained eye, they look comparable. What are you seeing / whats your oppinion. The CDT felt slightly better. The case feels more solid and the buttons feel of higher quality. None of that matters much, what matters is the sound, but from memory, they sound very similar and the CDT is $200 less. I had also considered moving up to the next level with regards to the transport but I’d more than likely have to buy used which scares me a bit with a transport. |
Sorry, different for us , when we've spent the day comparing. Highs always sounded a little etched/forward from owners that brought equipment to my place. We compared on my ESL's with either streaming the same version if we can find the same least compressed versions, or copying the same version of my CD on theirs and put it up against my CD transport using my MSB discrete R2R as the dac, using the same CD. My collection are the least compressed usually earliest versions, not re-masters or re-issues or latest versions. http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=supertramp&album=Free+As+A+Bird BTW the Cambridge CXC is very good for the money mine cost $490aud new, but it's still a budget transport. And as for the CDT6000, just compare the innards against the CXC My old Arcam Delta 250 transport is better than the CXC. And Wadia WT2000 even better again. Cheers George |
