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?
If the DAC is the same, how different do CD transports sound?
One interesting topic of discussion here is how audible the differences are between CD players when they are used as transports only — or when they are only transports to begin with.
In other words, in a comparison which keeps the DAC the same, how much difference can be heard between CD transports?
This recent video by Harley Lovegrove of Pearl Acoustics provides one test of this question. It may not be the ultimate test, but he does describe the experimental conditions and informations about the qualifications of the listeners.
He comes to the main conclusion here: https://youtu.be/TAOLGsS27R0?t=1079
The whole video is worth watching, I think.