New Jays Audio flagship cd transport

Hello folks, Todd here of TEKAudiospecialties.com. Let me apologize please for the confusion a1uc. And BTW your item has shipped.

I need to add a note on the website clarifying the shipping expectations. The site is still somewhat of a work in progress.

And if I may clarify the overall order process- we usually ship direct from the manufacturer. This works well and saves an additional shipping cost, which can be substantial with this bulky, heavy audiophile gear. We may also stock some of the less bulky and more common items as well for convenience.

So once the order is placed and paid we then place it with the manufacturer. There can generally be a day delay in communication due to our time difference. They receive the order, process it and it usually ships in < 1 week (assuming the item is currently available).

It’s been my experience lately as well that the item usually arrives within ~ 1 week or less as well, once shipped.

I do hope that helps.

Todd @ TEKAudiospecialties

BTW the CDT3 is impressive.. it’s very well engineered as a flagship product, quite heavy and built like a tank. The subchassis is precision machined into individual board enclaves, similar to some very expensive other gear.

That said, the CDT2 is not obsoleted either and still also quite impressive for those with less to spend on their system.

CDT3 inside: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lnFujMy1rL5-55WvYEb47o98iFZgg7S8/view?usp=sharing

Speaking of RJ45 I2S, I have found a good DDC (eg Gaia or Hermes) to be ~ indispensable in my system. Which also provides RJ45 I2S out, which does seem to sound better generally than HDMI I2S. It's how I feed my Terminator Plus for example. T

You're welcome Ed. Looks like your Metrum application will need an adapted pinout RJ45 cable to work. Todd

That's great news, congratulations :) How's it sounding? Todd

👏 👏 I hop you enjoy! Todd

I've often used upsampling with the CDT2 feeding an NOS DAC downstream.

Seems what we probably should avoid is though, upsampling in the CDT followed by upsampling again in the DAC.

Upsampling can be a deep topic for sure. One problem with NOS at 44K1/48K frequencies is, the waveform starts to look bad as we go up in frequency. Really bad in fact by 20KHz for example as there are only 2.x sample points available per cycle at 44K1 FS. Could we draw the desired exact waveform through only those 2.x points? Seems problematic..

Some will argue that it’s ok, the FS components are above the audio band and thus don’t matter audibly. In a perfect case with a perfect NOS stair case waveform that is ~ true. Ignoring what ultrasonics might also do to the downstream components. But in the real world the stair case waveform can be imperfect (often is), which could/does put unwanted frequency content tones down into the audio band. This all adds up to raising the noise floor dynamically.

Perhaps even worse, there are beats that come in- the waveform is also amplitude modulated (ackk). My theory is, this could be a part of why old (current?) CD audio tended to have the timing/rhythm messed up vs analog.. Next time upsampling, try and see if it affects the music rhythm or not.

For those interested take a look at http://www.mother-of-tone.com/cd.htm It’s a great resource about CD format.

Higher FS ~ fixes all this basically. Which makes sense as more points gets it closer to an analog waveform. However, upsampling itself is not trivial nor a benign process unfortunately. Seems it’s likely best to avoid double upsampling in a system.

If only we could go back in time and make CD audio at least 96K FS.. The world has suffered from 44K1 FS.. /Lament

Early on I had the then new CD walkman, the first, the D50. Made a suspended carrier thing to use it in my car audio system (it would skip if you breathed on it, so much for the "walk" part lol). It’s probably still laying in a box around here somewhere. https://onlythe80s.com/238/sony-discman/ My gosh the truth is early CD sounded abysmal lol.. "Perfect sound forever", they crowed.. indeed.

Anyway, at the end of the day may the best sounding config win in a given system :)

I also concur that RJ45 I2S generally seems to sound a little better still IME vs HDMI I2S, for whatever reasons. TK

Yes, CDT2 Mk3 has it. And yes, have used it :) The "program" button (if I recall correctly) will switch it to 4x. You'll see the display change accordingly. I would only use it with an NOS DAC downstream though. TK

Well.. Other than the fact that it's a true all-out engineering effort to make the best CDT possible, has an array of outputs including I2S via HDMI and RJ45, sounds fantastic and is built like a tank to extreme high quality.. No reason I suppose :D TK 

Thank you so much for the very kind words Robert, Jack, a1uc, ..

And lately I've been using a CDT3 at my place as well.. For now I've been feeding AES to a Gaia -> RJ45 I2S to a Termi Plus (and I2S or SPDIF to a couple of other very high resolution DACs).

And I'll try it with direct feed as well. But I find the CDT3 to be very transparent to the source recording, etc and I absolutely love it.  TK  

Thyname, thank you for the kind words. And I agree, actually the CDT3 is proving to be one of the best sounding sources available at any price. Kind of hard to comprehend, especially for a Redbook format, but true story.

Mojo Audio uses a CDT3 to demo their DACs as well, for example. I met them at Axpona '22 and enjoyed talking with Ben very much. They had one of the first CDT3 in the US at the time there for the demo; I have a picture of that around here somewhere.. Ben has a very good ear it seems ;)

Speaking of, I happen to have a Mojo Mystique X DAC in house currently and have to say, I am really liking what I hear from it as well. Bravo Mojo! TK