$729 for a China transport. Is that cheap or expensive? I honestly don’t know
New, Very Interesting CD Transport
On John Darko's website today we learn of the brand new Shanling ET3 CD Transport. And for $729 USD it looks really capable. Top loading with Philips SAA7824 drive. AES/EBU, coaxial, TOSLINK and I2S digital outputs. Plus Wifi and Bluetooth. USB to connect to a external HD and built in upsampling, too. It even will output digital to USB for connection to a DAC but not with upsampling.
Here's the skinny:
https://darko.audio/2023/06/shanlings-et3-cd-transport-comes-with-two-twists/
126 responses Add your response
@mofojo : the Project transport is four thousand American dollars? |
I was thinking that. I just looked it up and it’s 3200 usd. I was drooling over it a year or so ago and had 4K stuck in my head for some reason. Again not saying the Shanling is anywhere near the sound quality. Maybe it is and maybe not. I will say I have a Chinese Musician Aquarius dac and its heads and tails better than any other dac I’ve owned although I’ve never had an Uber expensive one. Just saying I believe for the most part you get more sound quality per buck with some of the Chinese stuff. At least the more trustable brands of them. |
@mofojo : what’s a cheaper China transport that costs much less and sounds the same as the Shanligr-Jana transport? It must be one |
I saw this CDT this morning and noticed it uses only digital outs with USB being one of them. I don't think any other CDT or CDP has that feature. As for looking "plasticky" it has an CNC machined all metal body. Must be the front with the display that gives that appearance. Here's the main site with all the details. All the best, |
Why waste money? I just ordered from eBay a Samsung DVD-HD841 to use as a transport. $16 including shipping and tax! All CD/DVD players have to conform to protocol and output the same digital bits! That's the difference between a digital device (transport) and an analog device (turntable). Turntables are inherently sonically colored while digital transports are not! This is the reality that the "golden ears" crowd prefers to wish away! |
@jasonbourne71 Uh oh...you'll be in trouble. LOL |
@secretguy : If someone wants to blow a wad of cash and drool over a CNC-machined-out-of-billet aluminum transport go right ahead! |
When I was younger people used to say Japanese items were junk! Boy how times have changed! MANY Audiophile and other non-audio related products are made in China and are very high quality! It's all dependent on the quality control that is being used! It's obvious we have an older crowd who frequents these forums. It's amazing some people just automatically assume a product is better just because it's made in the US. People sound silly when they say this! |
JasonBourne71, As usual your clueless, all digital transports don't sound the same sorry, compare your transport to an esoteric transport that uses the best CD mechanism in the world the VRDS clamping transport, there's nothing better on the market anywhere, esoteric makes the best transports period!!! there's not a better transport out there. |
As an owner (Purchased new in November 2021) of the Pro-Ject RS2T I can report that it isn’t “plasticky “ . The chassis and the CD drive unit is made of aluminum. The top lid is carbon fiber and portions of the isolated vibration control mechanism is stainless steel/carbon fiber. Much attention is paid to addressing vibration and resonance with regard to the spinning CD. It utilizes the latest CD drive technology made by Stream Unlimited, CD Pro-8 and is integrated with their Blue Tiger servo system. It retails for 3200.00 USD. Too expensive? Good value? That’s up to the potential customer to decide. I can state my assessment (Subjective obviously). Its sound quality is astonishingly good!!! A tremendous value for the sonic performance it is capable of providing. YMMV. Charles |
@mofojo, described in their own words.
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Why waste money? I just ordered from eBay a Samsung DVD-HD841 to use as a transport. $16 including shipping and tax! All CD/DVD players have to conform to protocol and output the same digital bits! That's the difference between a digital device (transport) and an analog device (turntable). Turntables are inherently sonically colored while digital transports are not! This is the reality that the "golden ears" crowd prefers to wish away! What a load of twaddle.
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@magnuman : I've been at this stuff a lot longer than you! Heck, if I thought spending four-figures on a transport would give me better sound I'd for sure do it! The digital world is totally unlike Analog - where structural integrity, mechanical precision and vibration control rule! |
I well remember back about thirty years ago when the golden-ear crowd was gaga over the CEC belt-drive transport! Anybody ever see one of those lately? Didn’t think so! How about the Theta transport praised by TAS that was actually a $200 DVD player hidden intact inside a metal shell? TAS said it was the best sounding transport ever and a new standard for digital playback! |
I remember the CEC transport with the unique belt drive system. It was really expensive at the time. I seem to vaguely remember the price being somewhere around $10,000? As I recall it was positively reviewed by the audio critics. Back to reality for my audio budget. lol I use the transport section of an Onkyo C-7030 CD player with a few different dacs; all with good results. I paid $173 for it in 2017, and that included a separate 3 year extended warranty. Could the Shanling be that much better for $729? Maybe, maybe not. It is kinda neat though. 😊
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I’m having a more difficult time refuting ‘71’s cheap CD player claim than his stance on power cords. I used a cheap drive and software that compares results to others that have ripped the same CD to store a bit perfect copy on my Aurender and that copy compares to Qobuz streaming. This does use an error checking step that isn’t available with a player. I always thought that cheap transports provided error prone reads, or more transmission errors, but not sure that this is always the case. I’ll note that the review posted above is limited to a review of features and is pretty limited should you be using this review in order to make a purchasing decision. On another topic, I just received two Chinese made rice storage bins and I can report that they each store 15Kg of rice, but no Wi-Fi, or USB functionality. |
So reading the specs on this thing it appears to be a streamer with a disc drive as it supports: Playback from USB Drive - 2.4G/5G Wi-Fi with DLNA/Airplay support - Bluetooth 5.0 input with LDAC, AAC and SBC support So a CD transport but more it looks like a solid value Shanling has been building disc spinners for quite a few years now. |
Folks, there are those that are transport aware and those that are not. It’s not a plus for CD playing to have a disc drive and electronics that handles SACD or BluRay. That’s actually a minus. Different colored lasers arcing in different patterns are required for SACD, etc. Also, Computer disc drives, and multi-format drives have to play at different speeds, constantly speeding up and slowing down. A pure Redbook CD Transport is optimized for CD playing - the drive, the drive speed, the laser, the power supply, the digital handling within are all important. As you may have heard everything is important in digital playback. This player competes against the Audiolab CDT7000 at $800, the Audiolab CDT9000 at $1,500, The Jay’s Audio CDT2 MK3 at $2,500, the Pro-Ject RS2T at $3100. And other transports between $5000 and $18000. For this price, the Shanling surpasses all in terms of inputs and outputs and overall features. How does it sound? It’s not been released yet. Just announced and set to be released by next month. |
The Shanling transport looks interesting and has a few features that mat be valuable to some users. One of the key things about the Shanling is that they specify the brand and model of drive they are using. I don’t know whether or not this Phillips drive was developed specifically for audio playback but hopefully it is a robust drive. The overarching problem with audio transports is that they often use a cheap drive meant for computer use (spin up, read data, turn off) and these tend to fail under audio use. A computer drive was not designed for hour upon hour of playback on a daily basis and they simply wear out. I’m the unlucky victim of this problem. I bought a PSA PerfectWave Transport ($4k retail) which seems to be built to a high standard except for the assembly at the heart of the unit - the drive itself. They used a cheap rotgut computer drive that must have cost them $10 wholesale (yes, in a $4,000 transport) and I’m on my third drive and it is beginning to fail. PSA wants $500 to fix it which ain’t gonna happen. I’m going to try the surgery myself and if I ’f it up it goes to the recycling center. My advice about transports is to make sure the heart of the thing is actually designed for the demands of music playback. My strategy to solve this problem long term is that I bought a Marantz KI Ruby SACD player on closeout ($3000) which has a drive optimized for music playback. It was designed and built by Marantz from the ground up and should last forever. I’ve had two other Marantz players which I played the hell out of and never had a drive failure. The reason I need a transport is that I have a Black Ice tube DAC that I like the sound of for CD playback. OTOH, if you are comfortable that all transports sound the same then a cheap DVD player is a great option. For $30 bucks you can just replace the thing when it breaks. |
True: ANYTHING that reads a CD spins at the same variable speed to maintain the bit rate? CDs spin at an angular speed of 500 rpm when read from the center and 200 rpm when read near the circumference. Besides having an angular velocity, the CD also has a constant linear velocity (CLV). The CLV of a CD has been standardized by Philips at 1.2 to 1.4 m/s. SACD's have separate lasers, focused on the hybrid's alternate SACD/DSD layer. Beneficial, not a handicap. Note the optional upscale to DSD in the unit you mentioned. |
I too once used an LG BluRay player as a transport, then the ever popular Onkyo 7030 CDP. Both sounded blah but I was willing to believe it was just the CD medium. I heard someone raving about CD Transports and as luck would have it someone local was selling a Cambridge Audio CXC Transport. So, I could find out for myself immediately. WOW, eye opening improvement. Not subtle at all. Suddenly, the 800 CDs in my attic became a playground of new/old discoveries. 300 of which have made it into my listening room. Now I wish I had not given away all those CD Racks. I heard other great reviews of the Audiolab CDT6000 in the same price range as the CXC. So, taking a bit of a risk I bought a used one of those, too. I really like the CXC but the CDT6000 is just that little bit better. These two models are on the used market for between $300 and $400. You owe it to yourself to try one - don't be a bits is bits guy proud of his $16 purchase on eBay. Don't be someone with zero actual knowledge how good your CDs can sould and then tell others that it's crazy to spend more on something designed to do a much better job doing a single job as perfectly as possible. |
I didn’t mean CDs don’t spin at differing rates - but a constant velocity as you mentioned. A different velocity from SACDs and Video disc playback. The drive is optimized for Redbook playback. The laser is optimized for Redbook playback. The power supply is optimized for the CLV of Redbook playback. I didn’t say DSD wasn’t a plus as a format. Just that when you are working at Redbook optimization the multiple lasers, tracking angle, speeds and extra cost are not a plus to include a SACD dirve in a Redbook CD Transport. |
Salient points. I know that some listeners report hearing no difference between a very cheap player/transport and higher end versions. If that is their experience, who am I to argue with them ? They have saved themselves considerable money. This just has not been the case in my experience. Consistently better built, better engineered and designed CD transports sound significantly better in my listening experience. I have also observed (As cited above) that the higher quality better sounding transports are dedicated CD only rather than a jack of all trades multi format approach. So again, it depends on what someone is trying to accomplish. Charles |
Bits are bits. Wires are wires. No difference in the sound of any turntable(s) because they all just spin an album. Someone stated a Sony Walkman portable CD player running on batteries is the best CD player for his audio system. All amps sound the same. What’s the truth, who knows?... we just take the ride.
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JasonBourne71 I don't think you've been at this longer than me at all I've been doing this for over 40 years and if you think of $16 transport is going to be an esoteric transport you better get your head examined and get your ears checked cuz you're totally clueless if you think that every transport sounds the same so tell me what your system is and I'll tell you what mine is, mine is worth 72,000 and I guarantee you it'll kick the crap out of your system if you're using $16 transports lol give your head a shake buddy you know absolutely squat. |
Humm, I'm 73 and got my first turntable in 1965. Let's see, that's 58 years. So, that either means I'm too old to know any better... or some kind of audio genius. Depends, I guess, on who you talk to. |
We each have a bias based upon experience. My bias is based upon my purchase of an Audiolab 6000CDT, which isn’t anyone’s idea of the best transport. I just didn’t like what I heard. Fast forward to a major upgrade of DAC and the purchase of an Aurender N20 and my full CD collection now resides on the Aurender and the better CDs sound quite musical and really didn’t leave me wanting more. So, my bias with regards to digital is to put the money into a great DAC and streamer/server. That said, perhaps someday one of you will bring over a transport that puts my streamed files to shame. ’71’ is certainly the resident skeptic. I know that his power cable skepticism comes from a decades old dealers PC comparison. I suspect his bits are bits declaration has a basis in his experience. So, @jasonbourne71 a true upgrade to ‘52’, what past experiences/events have you convinced that inexpensive transports provide, or can provide equivalent performance to more exotic offerings? |
OP- You missed my point. What's the truth, who knows... we all take the ride. That means you like whatever you like, who is anyone to debate you. If you want to buy a new transport and luv the sound... you gain from that. If you don't like the sound you can sell it and buy something else. No worries.... Whatever you see in my system is what I like, and I know 1/2 of a million fellow audio gurus will say it's junk. Who is to know? |
Never understand the "all transports" sound the same commentary. The same transport may itself sound different depending upon which output connection has been optimized by the manufacturer. The SQ through the SimAudio 260DT in my 2nd system sounds even better using AES/EBU than SPDIF. After hearing the difference I reached out to SimAudio to ask if any of the outputs had been optimized and was told AES/EBU thereby confirming what i heard. Also, I initially had the Cambridge CXC in that system and it comes up well short of the SimAudio 260DT's SQ SPDIF vs SPDIF.
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The Shanling ET3 CD transport looks more impressive than I initially thought with a cnc machined case, Philips transport w/ Sanyo laser, and hi-res digital output. https://en.shanling.com/article-IntroET3.html
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