CD transports; do they really matter

@majorc 

And the DAC, preamp, amp and speakers you played them through?

@majorc

Thank you. I understand.

@jl35

Yes, you are correct. However, high end equipment will incorporate transports in heavy dampening structures to reduce vibration, feed the exceptionally clean power, isolate from electronic noice and get a tremendously better sound quality.

Also, you need a system of a certain level of resolution and fidelity before differences in transports start making a difference. In general, the better the system the more obvious and important the sonic differences in a transport.

First, does the transport matter… yes. High end manufactures take mass produced transports and isolate them and provide very stable current. They go to great lengths to get the best stream of bits out of them.

However, it is a stream of bits… which you can get from a local file, 0r a network drive, or a streaming service. If it was ten years ago one would look for a great CD player (Transport, Streamer, and DAC). But today it is old technology. Today and the future is about streaming. A good streamer and DAC completely replaces a CD player as a digital source. You can buy a combined streamer, storage, and DAC, or individual. But the future is streaming… not owning physical or digital media. My streamer (using Qobuz) sounds the same on red book CDs and vinyl and frequently better with high Rez. There is no longer a compelling reason to buy a CD player unless you love playing with physical things.

BTW, from a historical perspective it was physical media, then rip CDs (copy a digital file to a storage device… like hard drive), then copy files to a network drive. All historically interesting, but something in ten years folks will be laughing at… you did what? Why?