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New Transport? / Streamer? / CD Player?

Looking for help, I want to improve my CD playback and my bottleneck is my CD transport. I'm using a Cambridge Audio CXC transport with an Audio Mirror Tubadour III SE. I love how my AM DAC frames the music so a new transport seems to be the logical path. I have 500+ CDs and primarily listen to LPs now. I would like up the quality of my CD playback thinking this will be my long term path as I get older, yikes!

I seem to have 3 options:

1. Buy a quality transport, these products look interesting:

Pro-ject CD Box RS2 T (needs LPS to sound best?)
Jays Audio CDT2-Mk3 (can't turn off upsampling?)
Audio Note CDT Zero or One

2. Buy a streamer that can either store my ripped CDs or can read them from an external HD?

3. Sell my DAC and buy a one box CD player?

#1 seems to be the most logical but that's mainly because I have limited experience with #2. I have used various laptops but found that my CA CXC outperforms it considerably when playing CDs. I know you can modify computers to do a better but it seemed to be much more complicated and expensive path just to play a CD. I see there are some streamers that are like dedicated and modified computers, some have internal storage others with USB ports so you have attach a hard drive. Are any of these work considering? Keeping in mind my primary objective is to improve my CD playback vs convenience of working from an app. Is a streamer a more complicated device, needing more engineering to deal with noise or vibration issues? Some are very expensive but aren't they just dedicated audio computers.
Are there other transports that I should consider?

Another option is sell off my DAC and buy a one box CD player. Relative the cost of adding transport my budget would be about $5K. Are there any one box CD player options that I should consider? I went for the AM DAC because of how the DAC frames the music, it's an R2R DAC and the music is very fluid and musical. I'm sold on this direction for CD playback the musical experience is similar to vinyl.

Any help appreciated! Auditioning any of the above is impossible where I live.
128x128musichead

Showing 6 responses by charles1dad

charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
"My forecast rests on a very solid footing"

And maybe an accurate forecast, but just a forcast nonetheless. No one knows if digital streaming is going to be the superior source/delivery of audio sound quality 10 years down the road. We will simply have to wait and observe how things evolve. So far I’ve come across no one who is a definitive predictor of future outcomes. Time will tell. In the meanwhile pursue what. sounds best to you.
Charles
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
@musichead

@mahler123, In my opinion made a very good suggestion for you. The Melco N-100/E100, combo streamer/server/HD storage/CD ripper/transport. All this for 3000.00 USD. Seems like a very reasonable solution with flexibility and streaming convenience.

Or for 3000.00 you could go
the route of a very upper tier CD transport i.e.the Pro-Ject CD BOX RS2. No streaming/CD ripping or HD storage, but dedicated/committed specific task of reading CDs at a upper tier performance level. State of the art according to some familiar with it.

Either seems like money well spent depending on your preferred approach.
Charles
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
@ghdprentice, 

"But if you look towards the future you are likely to have a higher performance system in ten years from now if you go Streamer / DAC vs CD player."

I appreciate your comments but that is simply conjecture and nothing more (Or less). At the rate things are going with continued improvement with Analogue turntables, CD transports and digital servers/streaming it’s anyone’s reasonable guess. It will be interesting and fun to see where these various audio front end sources take us.
Charles


charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
CD transports versus digital servers/streamers has been debated endlessly. At the end of the day both sides have their faithful advocates because either can provide much satisfaction if done right. This rivals box speaker versus panel speaker or tube versus transistors. Never to be a consensus winner.
Charles
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
@fuzztone,
you are the first Pro-Ject CD BOX RS2 owner I have come across who has not clearly heard an improvement with a linear power supply in place of the stock wall wart SMPS. That’s an interesting take. I have read and been told that indeed the sound is terrific with the SMPS but "clearly" improves with a LPS. further evidence that people just hear differently. The always present subjective element.

@facten,
Agree, quality of transport and digital cable absolutely matter. For some odd reason, there is the tendency (By some listeners) to treat these two vital factors as after thoughts. As though only the DAC matters, not true by a country mile!
Charles
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
@musichead,
You have what is considered to be a very good sounding DAC paired with a solid performing CD transport. I believe that moving from the competent Cambridge Audio transport up to  the very highly regarded Pro-Ject CD BOX RS2 wound result in substantial sound quality improvement.

You wouldn’t have to get an upgraded linear power supply (LPS) immediately. Though an improvement. Many owners report the stock SMPS (Wall wart) still provides excellent sound with the RS2 transport. A good LPS takes it further still.
Charles
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