CD Transports

I have compared many CD players and Transports and for the money, it is really hard to beat the Pioneer Elite units.  The DV-09 is literally built like a tank.  Same for BDP-09. unit.

They are very inexpensive and are absolutely wonderful as Transports.

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The costs to buy a "built like a tank" CD Transport that was top of the line in its day vs buying a brand new one that is even close to its performance or even sending the older one in for service is minimal compared to spending thousands for a new one.

Take for example the Pioneer Elite DV-09 or BDP-09.  I've compared these against many, many CD players/Transports, many brand new and very expensive and they beat them all as Transports.  For $400 used, you just can't beat this.

People went through the upgrade path where they went from DVD players to Blue Ray players and got rid of their top of the line DVD players because they were using them for home theater also.  Well, my home theater system is totally different and in a different room from my 2 channel system.  

The DV-09 is just cool, the way the door opens and how solid it is.  The DV-79Avi is also nice.

But, in my 2 channel room is the BDP-09 and in my other system (office) is the PD-65 and the DV-09.  I really like the wood side panels on the Pioneer Elite stuff.

Anyway, just my thoughts on saving lots of money and getting top equipment.

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When I say "Built like a tank" I'm speaking from an Engineering point of view.  I am an Electrical/Electronics Engineer that has designed built amplifiers, filters,  and electronic circuitry over my career. 

I typically mean designed and built very well.

many of these have four DACS two for each side for redundancy.

As I said, i have sat and compared these units to many many other CD player/transports, and I really had a hard time finding any that beat them as transports.

Also, in response to one comment, i have experienced no sound degradation.   No scattered light, etc.

Also, the BDP-09,  DV-79AV and the BDP-95 are very nice as CD players  also because they have excellent internal DACS.  

Just saying.  With people constantly upgrading to the latest and greatest Blue Ray players with the latest bells and whistles.  They sometimes forget that some units (Pioneer Elite, Sony ES, etc.) were very well designed and built as audiophile level units.

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I don't  necessarily agree with some of the statements here.  If you address clocking, jitter, etc. then a good dac is a good dac.  Either it does what it's supposed to do (correctly convert a digital stream to analog) or it doesn't.  

The systems that go back and forth to make sure that it got the correct data before proceeding, multiple laser pick ups, error correction, jitter, all kinds of things.  These all add costs to designs and systems.

i initially was speaking about transports only, then added a few units that have pretty darn good internal DACS.

Now back in the day, these were near top  units both in performance and costs.  move forward to today, these "used" units for the money are pretty hard to beat.  And that was the point.

You take a top of the line DAC today and get a top of the line Transport both today and older transport unit and compare the two into the same DAC.  Jaw dropping differences?  no.  A solidly built transport with good pick up mechanism is just that.  

I've also compared top of the line DACS of today with CD players and DACS of the past and guess what?  differences? yes.  Jaw dropping, not in many cases.  Especially DAC vs DAC.  Discrete analog output stages and very well designed and built power supplies matter.

but, this is just me.  Don't get me wrong, there are technological advances.   but if budget is an issue, I would invest in a nice DAC and get a used but very nice Transport.  Especially if you could synch the internal clocks.

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