If the DAC is the same, how different do CD transports sound?

Only a blind listening test to eliminate sighted bias and matched output voltage levels has any validity. Anything else is anecdotal!

I listened to the first consumer CD player in 1982. The vertical-loading Hitachi ($1000). I did not sell my TT and LP'S. This was at the best HiFi dealer in Connecticut. I waited until 1992 to buy my first CD player. In fact I bought my first CD in the Fall of 1991 - a mark-down at Square Circle in the local mall. This despite not having a player! More mark-down CD'S followed before I bought my first CD player - a lowly Technics SLP 340 from J&R Music on Park Row in NYC. I kept my TT and LP'S.

I remain skeptical about the soaring prices of DAC'S and now transports! Methinks this is a moneyphile thing driven by expectation bias and status-ranking. Digital's promise was the perfect transfer/transmission of the encoded data. Unlike Analog where every copy is at least slightly different! Plus everytime an Analog recording is played back there is loss and degradation.

I posted this in neighboring discussion recently:

I will describe to you my experience, not what I had read or heard from others. I bought Denafrips Ares II and utilized Arcam CD192 as a transport, it was great improvement, then I replaced Arcam with Cambridge CXC transport that was very noticeable improvement over Arcam transport section. I did go further up the ladder since. I have learned from my own experience that dedicated transport matters.

Now I am using Jay's Audio CDT2-MK3 with Denafrips Venus II 12th it is impressive improvement in comparison to Cambridge/AresII. Also, the HDMI connection over coaxial makes considerable difference, mostly much greater three dimensionality and placement of the instruments  using HDMI. I do agree with Harley that a DAC makes greater difference then transport. My experience.

Too bad the well-heeled audiophile can't wear that $3K transport on the wrist to show it off like a fancy watch! 

I had an Oppo 970HD connected to a MyDac.  it sounded ok then I swapped out a Tascam CD-RW900MKII again through the MyDac.

The sound was much richer fuller, the Oppo sounded thin.  I was pleasently surprised

@knock1 : without a blind test with matched levels your reporting is only anecdotal. As Perry Mason would say "Can't stand up in Court".

In an A/B comparison the unit with the higher output voltage will sound better. That’s how we humans respond! The difference can be as little as .1 of a volt or less! That is why matching the output levels is so important! This applies to DAC'S and preamps too!

When using an external DAC, isn’t a CD player really just a streamer? In my experience, streamers vary significantly in their performance and are affected by noise and jitter. I have doubts that fancy transports make a difference, they are just reading data, and the real magic happens between the drive and the digital output of the player. Thoughts?

Your CD player will sound different if you use it as transport, you will hear the digital cable , interconnect, and pc used by your DAC. I find using DAC is better.assuming  it matches .Not always its up to you how you will utilize The changes.

zlone

When using an external DAC, isn’t a CD player really just a streamer?

No, streaming and CD playback are two entirely different protocols.

 without a blind test with matched levels your reporting is only anecdotal. As Perry Mason would say "Can't stand up in Court".

Well, I have forgotten your scientific approach "it's only 0 and 1".

If you say so. 🙄

jasonbourne, Why don't you tell us exactly how you do your blind a/b testing, including all of the details of set up etc? Then we could copy your methodology  and see if we agree with your conclusions. 

Hey jasonbourne. I think the first consumer CD player was introduced by Sony in 1982. The CDP-101. I was in Germany at the time (in the US Army) and my buddy bought one at the post exchange. Also Philips (the co-developer of the CD player) introduced one as well. I actually bought the Hitachi brand, just like you did... but a little later.

Also I agree that if you find a quality integrated amp that can switch two digital sources and the listener does not know which one they are listening to, that might be a good way to test two players. I think any way you can do this with headphones might be an even better way to eliminate external noise.

The question the OP is posting is about the difference between various CD transports. Level matching does not come into play here. Neither is this a discussion in a difference between CD players.

@hilde45 - there’s a difference between CD transports. Higher end transports use better quality parts, better power supplies as well as better chassis and dampening. This results in improved sound quality.

That being said, the current under $1,000 “budget” transports like the Audiolab, Cambridge and Pro-Ject are really excellent. I checked out a few in my system and if streaming didn’t beat them, I’d definitely go for one of those.

As to A/B testing - quick A/B is never a good way to fully appreciate the differences, blind testing or not. Take your time with each component and trust your ears.

They should be very similar.   You've hit on a key point.  The main difference in the sound between CD players is the relatively cheap onboard DAC that each uses.  Eliminate the DAC and now you've eliminated most of the variance.

So it comes down to which CD transport drops the most bits and introduces the most jitter.   Good CD transports should do very little of either so it should be hard to tell them apart.

Jerry

@jasonbourne71 If you watch the video first, you won't need to say "Only a blind listening test to eliminate sighted bias and matched output voltage levels has any validity. Anything else is anecdotal!"

@audphile1

there’s a difference between CD transports. Higher end transports use better quality parts, better power supplies as well as better chassis and dampening. This results in improved sound quality.

That was my assumption going in. I think that was the assumption of Mr. Lovegrove. It was not borne out in this test. That’s interesting to me because it helps strengthens the argument for optimizing a CD-DAC combo by putting most of one's time, energy, and money into the DAC. This does not mean get a bad CD player. And this was a point I believe @jjss49 made on another thread, and now we have a video about this same topic.

The DAC will make the most difference. In my experience.
With a caveat…you must use a decent CDT…something like the units I mentioned above. Don’t waste money on a good dac if you plan to drive it with a $99 universal player from early 2000s. Just like anything else in this hobby, you can get by but to realize a full potential of any given component the rest of your system must be on the level. 
 

I posted this on another thread :

Transports are not all the same SQ wise and will either hold back or release the potential of the DAC. Benjamin Zwickel, Mojo Audio DACs, clued me into this when I was purchasing one of his ,and he was correct. I went from Cambridge CXC to Simaudio DT 260 and the SQ materially improved. Check out the threads on the top Project transport or the Jay’s transports and you will find similar experiences. Also, when you go beyond the likes of the Cambridge or Audio Lab transports one of the digital output connections might be optimized for SQ so you may want to have a DAC that accepts that connection. I initially used the SPDIF on the Simaudio and it sounded very good. However, out of curiosity I asked Simaudio if one of the connections was optimized for SQ and was told the AES/EBU was. The result was a further uptick in SQ. I believe the top of the line Project is optimized likewise, though folks using the SPDIF connection appear to be very pleased with its SQ. I don’t know if either of the Jay’s transports have an optimized output.

I'll further add, it's not about bling , expectation bias, status ranking, and the rest of the  commentary.  It's about the resulting SQ. Try them firsthand and decide for yourself .

When I compared my Sony HAP-Z1ES streamer to my MBL 1621A transport, I could not distinguish a difference when they were running through the same DAC, an MBL 1611F. The rest of the chain was an MBL 6010D pre-amp, MBL 9007 monoblock amps, and MBL 111E speakers. I played the same song through both simultaneously and switched back and forth between them. They sounded identical to me. 

I sent the output to my headphone amp as well and kept playing music and switching between sources on the fly. Again, I wasn't able to detect a difference.

This was my experience: others may have different experiences. But in my system, my $2,000 streamer equaled my $20,000 transport.

I liked this video and the comparison. The players were level matched using a voltmeter and the listening panel seemed to be skilled. These and other details show that there was some thought and care that went into this experiment.

The conclusion drawn about all the transports playing through the same DAC isn’t surprising, just common sense.

@zlone

Is a transport + DAC equivalent to streaming? Pretty much. Either way, the digital data is being transmitted from point A to point B in a real-time fashion.

@yage Thanks for watching and commenting thoughtfully. I am curious whether Mr. Lovegrove feels satisfied that a sufficiently high quality of transport (or player used as a transport) was represented in this listening trial. He went to a lot of trouble to do this experiment -- did he miss a chance to use the kinds of units people here are convinced make a difference? (In fairness, I am not sure if any here have done the kind of controlled listening test that Lovegrove did.)

@hilde45 I was thinking about this type of testing where there’s a group of people listening to different components, in this case, transports. 
In my opinion, I would not rely on this type of evaluation:

1. The evaluation is done by a group of people not thoroughly and intimately familiar with the system. 
2. It was a quick A/B type comparison. 
 

Reason why I would not rely on this - 

A listener needs time to evaluate a change brought by a component in a system they are familiar with. This takes hours, if not days, listening to one component then repeating the process with the old component back in its place. Asking a person to evaluate a change in the system they’re not familiar with is not doing anyone or the component any favors. The brain needs time to get a good baseline and in this case, that time isn’t allowed.
For this reason alone, the results of this evaluation are pure entertainment and cary very little, if any, real world value. You have a panel of listeners with too many variables they’re put up against to make a proper judgement call. 

This of course is just my opinion and how I see and treat these types of listening tests. This is also why a blind A/B is bull 💩. It’s too quick and too flawed in its set up and execution. 

It’s so funny, people like Jason Bourne who shout “blind tests” in your face, never do any blind tests for themselves! 😂🤔. Why? Because they believe everything sounds the same, thus nothing to prove to themselves or anyone else. 

Harley Lovegrove of Pearl Acoustics is known for designing speaker enclosures states that from his listening tests transports don’t matter.

Benjamin Zwickel who designs and builds highly regarded Mojo Audio DACs tells his customers that the quality of the transport either holds back or releases the capabilities of a DAC.

You decide

@jasonbourne71  how do you level match a transport?

I heard I nice improvement going from the Audiolab 6000 to the Project CD Box RS2 T.  I didn't level match the and blind compare lol but I did notice things sounding better more real and less digital.  I also notice that playing a CD from the disc through my DAC sounds drastically better than streaming it through Roon. 

I went from a Cambridge transport to a PS Audio transport and finally a Jay's cdt2-mk3 transport. 

Absolutely amazing amount of difference in sound performance and all with the same Gustard x26 pro dac.

Also of note, using the Jay's with I2S connection via a Tubulus Concentus cable, quite a step up from the coax connections I had with the Cambridge and PS Audio. Sorry Jasonborne, cables and transport matter, in my experience anyway.

Sorry Jasonborne, cables and transport matter, in my experience anyway.

No need to apologize to this human being . That’s his full time job 

@jasonbourne71 You're a broken record but you speak truth. If companies that made stereo stuff, especially any type of ultra high profit cable, relied on blind testing, most of them would go out of business. George Michael said it best, you gotta have faith.

The transport has to recognize errors or ambiguous data, reread those problem areas, correct errors, or if necessary, interpolate and fill in gaps with an educated guess; all of this on the fly.  There is an advantage to ripping the CD on a quality ripper.  The ripper has the luxury of being able to reread a problem area over and over to confirm a particular stream of bits.  The stream of bits out of storage does not have to go through on the fly correction, which might give streaming of ripped CDs an advantage.

Hilde45,

I think the determining factor if differences can be heard, is system based. In my system I currently use an Audiolab 6000CDT, and it is perfectly at home in my $16,000 mid-fi system. That said I was able to borrow a Jay's CDT2-MkIII from a friend, and yes there is a noticeable improvement in sound quality as I tried them back and forth. However with my current system, It's not enough of an improvement to make me shell out $2,500 for the Jay's.

At some point that might change after I finish my new listening room, and get it dialed in.....but I'll probably upgrade my streamer first, I think I'll get a larger improvement in streaming SQ with an Aurender/Innuous/Lumin going through my Denafrips Pontus II DAC.

+1 @jasonbourne71 and @2psyop

You are limited by the data stored in a CD regardless of what one do how to extract, decode and play. An audio compact disc consists of one or more stereo tracks stored using 16-bit PCM coding at a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz.

Main problem during extracting this information is "jitter." Jitter is produced either when a digital signal is created from the analog recording or when a digital recording is reconverted into an analog signal for playback.

Jitter occurs when the clock signal drifts slightly and the intervals between samples end up with tiny variations in length, causing distortion of the original sound when played back.

There is not a whole lot one can do about jitter produced when the digital signal is created from the analog signal. Technically, playback jitter is the inaccuracy in the timing of the "ticks" of the clock that transfers the samples of digital data into the D/A converter chip. To move data in a digital system from one point to another, it is usually clocked.

Most modern DACs have good reclocking mechanisms and other methods to reduce playback jitter. Any transport can provide the digital signal with varying degree of jitter. So the issue is, if you have a good DAC, then why would the transport matter? Because DAC should be able to buffer the incoming digital signal from any transport and convert into an analog signal based on its own clock and analog filters. Now one can argue about different DACs and their implementations. However, different CD transports should not impact the digital signal or its quality.

My recommendation is investing in a good DAC. Some of the DACs from the past will include excellent chips such as multi-bit Ultra Analog D20400, Burr Brow PCM63, PCM1704 as well as some outstanding one-bit DACs (Delta-sigma). If you really want to go crazy, try using DACs with tube analog stages. But return on a transport will be a question mark.

There is no difference between transports.

If you embrace the influence of expectation bias you can appreciate that the more you spend on anything the better you will think it sounds. That always works.

I am not aware of any compelling explanations as to why this might be the case, but in my experience, top-loading transports which utilize weighted pucks on top of the CDs sound better than other designs.

No confirmation bias involved in my observations, though I have never A/B tested.

I have had different transports plugged into the same DAC playing the same CD.  Mostly I compared by switching back and forth but one time I enlisted my (very bored) wife to do the switching and write down my impressions.  My blind impressions always corresponded to my unblinded, but unless I get a different lab assistant I won’t be doing that again.  At any rate transports matter, imo, but the DAC is still the major determinant of digital sound

I think the differences are more about build quality, features, and the ability to read cds ie error correction, buffer etc. I’d like to think my McIntosh transport sounds better than others, and maybe it does, but it can read cds other players can’t and it also has the ability to accept and play dsd files from a USB thumb drive. My two cents. 

@audphile1

In my opinion, I would not rely on this type of evaluation

Thanks for spelling out your thinking. I see your point about longer term listening. On the other hand, this was a test done by someone experienced in speaker design and recording and a group of others with a variety of expertise in audio and acoustic arts. Given the mettle of this group, I find it hard to believe they would participate in a sham experiment for entertainment purposes only, especially one where their names are mentioned and for all of this to be posted on a fairly popular YouTube channel. (It has 94k views so far.) I’m more inclined to think that both you and they have made observations relevant to the question, Do transports make a difference?

@vthokie83 Interesting that you find differences but that they’re not enough in your resolving system to spend up for a Jay’s. That does confirm if not the lack of difference in the YouTube experiment, at least the proposition that there is not that much to gain by a better transport. I see others here differ, and that’s fine, of course.

@pwerahera

Most modern DACs have good reclocking mechanisms and other methods to reduce playback jitter. Any transport can provide the digital signal with varying degree of jitter. So the issue is, if you have a good DAC, then why would the transport matter? Because DAC should be able to buffer the incoming digital signal from any transport and convert into an analog signal based on its own clock and analog filters. Now one can argue about different DACs and their implementations. However, different CD transports should not impact the digital signal or its quality. [my emphasis]

This is the explanation I got from a local audiophile friend whose expertise is in telecommunications and computing. It would fit with the experimental listening results which Mr. Lovegrove obtained.

It often gets lost in these threads, but I posted the Youtube video to generate discussion, not because I agreed with it. Thank you, folks, for the discussion.

With my GREAT (top flight, best ever) sounding office system (considered junk level for most here) where I rotate through lots of equipment and do my casual listening, I finally connected my office laptop to the receiver. Then did a simple comparison:

A) laptop, ripped CD (FLAC), 25 ft cheapest USB C to Shiit DAC, DAC expansive ($15 RCA to receiver.

B) Panasonic using above CD, same RCA to receiver

What blew my mind (initially): the laptop sounded SO MUCH (not even close) better. Granted, my fancy system (no component was more than $500, all used) is very revealing, still the difference was astonishing. The laptop just sounded so much more ALIVE, staging was a lot better. 

Further rethinking made it obvious: I was comparing a great (Shiit) and modern/new DAC with a really shitty, cheap and decades old (build into the lowly Panasonic CD) DCA. 

I am still a big believer that the ANALOG portion of any music chain is having by far the greatest impact (room, speakers, DAC, amps). 

@hilde45  A few of us have mentioned that there is an improvement moving from the Cambridge CXC transport, which incidentally you have. Do you know anyone who is relatively nearby you who has a Jay’s, Simaudio, or Project CD transport , or a dealer who can let you test out a CD transport that is beyond the Cambridge? A firsthand assessment in your system would be much better to draw a conclusion from for yourself then cherry picking the comments in the thread that allow you to confirm the video narrative that you bought into. Also, it’s somewhat interesting that you ignore the fact that a DAC designer states that transports impact DAC’s but go with the non-direct knowledge of a friend who is in telecommunications since it "confirms" what you wanted to believe.

@hilde45

It’s interesting that the listening panel could detect differences between the players but couldn’t do so when they were connected to the same DAC via SPDIF. Personally, I wouldn’t mind having the same listening panel try to determine if there are differences between transports, but it seems to me that Mr. Lovegrove found it somewhat obvious that there aren’t and I agree with his conclusion.

@facten 

A firsthand assessment in your system would be much better to draw a conclusion from for yourself then [sic] cherry picking the comments in the thread that allow you to confirm the video narrative that you bought into. 

I didn't "buy into" the video narrative. I presented it as something which seems worth discussing. You've phrased my position here tendentiously. 

And a test in my system with a local CD transport to compare with my CXC would be interesting, but I would need someone to help create blind conditions and make sure the voltage outputs and dB levels were equal to make it more valuable. That's something the "video narrative" did, and described the procedures pretty well.

Your cherry picking comments that simply support the video conclusion did it for you.

@hilde45 not at all what I was trying to convey.
Also, the number of views on the video is not an indication of how accurate the information is. Not sure why you think it’s important.
Looks like you’ve formed your opinion and the conclusion of the experiment described there just feeds into it.
Happy listening!

@audphile1 

not at all what I was trying to convey.
Also, the number of views on the video is not an indication of how accurate the information is. Not sure why you think it’s important.
Looks like you’ve formed your opinion and the conclusion of the experiment described there just feeds into it.

Sorry to miss your point. OTOH, I thought your point about longer listening as a way of determining differences was valid and something the video did not address. I hope I got that right.

The number of views of the video is relevant because the people cited by name in it have been heard 93k times as holding a certain view about audio. I would not want my name cited 93k times if I didn't believe what the video said I believed. Especially if it was in my professional area of expertise.

@facten Go ahead and believe whatever you want about me, since you've already cherry picked your way toward that conclusion.

Hilde45,

While I am interested in the discussion, and agree and disagree with parts of it based on my experience. For me personally the following are true right now:

(1) My current listening room itself is not optimal for critical listening, and does not have sufficient room treatment.....it's a family room with open concept, and wife is not allowing sound panels/traps in that environment; I fully understand that.

(2) I don't think my current components are not as resolving as some others, my Buchardt S400 MKIIs are warm and lush and sweet and involving with wonderful mids, punchy fast bass, and great soundstage....but not as revealing as say a Focal or B&W. My Denafrips components and tubes4hifi tube amplifier also tend to lean that way, so I don't think the true benefit of say a Jay's transport are able to shine

(3) Right now for me, it's a matter of resources. The biggest impediment is the room itself and sound treatment, and I'm building a new listening room to solve that problem. Second, I think a larger benefit for me would be from a high end streamer such as an Aurender N200 or Innuous Zenith or Lumin U2. While I could continue to use my Node 130/LHY LPS/Denafrips Iris DDC and be happy, there is definitely a really noticeable step up to be had with a better streamer. I tested an Aurender N10 in my system, and WOW!

(4) The Audiolab 6000CDT is a great CD transport for the money, it doesn't have any glaring weaknesses. Though once I am in a quieter, with correct dimensions, and properly treated room; with sound proofing and room treatment and proper power and an optimized network.....I will reevaluate my priorities. I could very well end up with a Jay's CDT2 MKIII transport after the other changes

Best to you