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.