New, Very Interesting CD Transport

dumb question, how do you select, say track no, 12 out of 15 songs from the remote ?  Is a universal remote control with numeric keypad works with ET3? 

You put the CD on and listen to the 11 songs - as in listen to the entire CD. Just like LPs, you listen to the whole thing. OR, you push the FF button 11 times if you must listen to just one song on a CD.

To answer the universal remote question someone who cared about that feature enough to test out a "universal" remote would have to try it.

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.

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.

@magnuman 

JasonBourne71

I don't think you've been at this longer than me at all I've been doing this for over 40 years.

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.

@2psyop 

Bits are bits. Wires are wires. No difference in the sound of any turntable(s) because they all just spin an album.

I looked at your systems - you know the difference. Now you're just trolling.

The US dealer for the Shanling ET3 transport now has them in stock:

 https://shop.musicteck.com/collections/shanling/products/shanling-et3-dedicated-digital-cd-transport

I've inquired about a tryout period with no-hassle returns. I may give it a go.

Does the Shanling ET-3 CD transport play gaplessly?

I obviously does with my CDs, To be sure, I pulled out DSOM and it sounds great on the ET-3. No pauses inserted.

I haven't attempted to use the device as a streamer so I can only go by what others have said and as I recall they said it was gapless in all but one network format. I paid little to no attention to this, as I doubt I'd ever use this as a streamer. I bought this for it's CD playback and multitude of output choices exclusively.

I have one on order for delivery on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I’ll report back then.

By the way... I’ve owned a Cambridge Audio CXC, an Audiolab 6000CDT and a Jay’s Audio CDT2-MK3 in the past year. So, it will be interesting to see how this sounds.

I loved the CXC but liked the sound of the 6000CDT better. The Jay’s CDT2-MK3 was fantastic, but I ultimately decided that I didn’t need a $2,000 CD Transport. I was going to buy another Audiolab, probably the 7000CDT but, after owning the Jay’s I decided that I liked the top loading of the Shanling better.

I was interested in this but bought the Jay’s Audio CDT2-MK3. I’m not interested in anything else now. The Jay’s is fantastic.

am considering the Jay’s CDT2-MK3. "

It is really as good as everyone says. I kind of got carried away. I bought the Cambridge CXC locally for $250 and really liked it. So naturally I had to try the Audiolab 6000CDT. It too sounded really good so when I found a Jay’s CDT2-MK3 for under $2k I jumped for it.

It’s so big, solid and smooth sounding. But, really, CDs are not that big in my life. Sure, the Transports had me dig out my old CD collection. And, I even bought some new and used CDs to add to it.

But thinking realistically I don’t need a transport at that $2000 level. So, I sold it for what I paid for it and ordered the Shanling. I was going to buy another Audiolab but the Shanling was about the same price. Done.

Relevance to this thread, pindac?????

I received my Shanling EC3 yesterday. So, it’s nowhere near broken in yet. I’ve been playing it no more than 2 hours. I should have run it all night on mute, but forgot to.

First impressions... well made, nice form factor, easy quick start for CD playback. As to sound, it’s a bit warmer than the Jay’s CD2-MK3. Like the Jay’s there’s plenty of bass, but it’s not quite as open on top, at least not yet. But it does not seem lacking.

I have not tried ANYTHING other than playing CDs. I don’t know, yet, what firmware it was delivered with. I’ve not attempted Bluetooth or their Eddict Player App. So, I can’t comment there. I did buy this for CD playback. So, the other features are a nice bonus, but not a first priority.

I’m running the CD3 output via coax S/PDIF into my Chord Hugo TT2 DAC. I plan to test optical later today and maybe USB also. The TT2 doesn’t have I2S or AES-EBU inputs.

No buyer's remorse - everything works and sounds good. I'm especially liking the soundstage and depth. But then my DAC is a specialist in those qualities.

Can you cancel oversampling in your Shanling EC3 transport?

It is important to any Chord DAC that has its own oversampling processing algorithm.

It is non-oversampling for CD Playback. When using it as a WiFi streamer I know you can stream high res out of it via it's DNLA network connections. But, I don't have any of that setup yet. It's just outputting Redbook CD into my Hugo TT2.

By the way you can send upsampled content to the Chord DAC, I do so via HQ Player/Roon/Qobuz. But that works best when you send content upsampled to at least 705.6hz to bypass the Chord's internal upsampling.

Can you cancel oversampling in your Shanling EC3 transport?

Well, I found a setting in the menu that suggests that it can upsample CDs. But it definitely has a "Bypass" setting that shows 16/44.1 output.

It’s kind of confusing figuring out the menu as some things pertain to other sources i.e. Bluetooth and USB Drive/Stick and I don’t know if they apply to CDs too.

But I have mine set at Bypass and the Chord Hugo TT2 is showing 16/44.1 is being received.

UPDATE: I just set it to 192hz and it is upsampling the CD as the TT2 "light" changed from Red for 44.1 to Blue for 192.

So, to definitively answer your initial question... Yes, it has upsampling BUT you can bypass it and output 44.1 Redbook from CDs.

CORRECTION - I've been calling the transport the "EC3" but it's actually called the ET3 not EC3.

In fact, I think Shanling makes a full CD Player with the EC3 name.

Sorry for the error.

Just circling back after a month with the Shanling ET3... I"m not missing the Jay's CDT2-MK3 at all. This unit sounds great and is a joy to live with.

NOTE: I'm still just using it as a CD transport. I've not attempted to use it as a streamer nor have I downloaded the App that's available for it.

First, I’m not a fan of MQA. I tried it with Tidal and a MQA capable DAC when it first came out. I ended up thinking it was not a good thing. It did sound different, I suppose at one time I thought it was better or maybe just different. But after trying Qobuz and listening to higher res files without MQA I dumped Tidal and sold the MQA capable DAC.

I bring all this up, because the Shanling ET3 is capable of playing MQA CDs-yes, that’s thing evidently.

I’m always up for trying things. I was listening to a new Bob James Trio album (Feel Like Making Live) on Qobuz and liked it. Then I heard it was available on a MQA CD. Humm.

Amazon had it for less than $20 (vinyl was nearly $70!) so I thought I’d try it. It arrived today and included a separate "Immersive audio’ BluRay disk, too) Which I’ll never play.

So, I’m listening to the MQA CD now. It lights up a green MQA logo on the front of the CD transport and the display says it’s 88.2/24 resolution. My Hugo TT2 DAC doesn’t do MQA but doesn’t need to in this case. It see the CD as 88.2 and displays a light yellow color to indicate this.

It sounds quite good. Is that due to the MQA? Or is it just a nice sounding CD? I’ll have to compare it with my Qobuz version of the music soon. But right now, I’m wondering - if CDs had always had a way to output 88.2/24 instead of 44.1/16 would we have moved away from them so quickly in the end??

I'm still enjoying the Shanling ET-3 BUT... I'm a bit disappointed in the USB output options. In S/PDIF coax or optical you can use the transport's upsampling to 192hz. Withe I2S you can upsample to 768hz or even DSD512. But with USB upsampling is not available at all.

I contacted Shanling and they quickly got back to me and said it was a hardware limitation and that it would not be "fixed" in firmware later, because it can't be.

Now, that's not a deal killer. I got it to play CDs at 441.hz. But I do like the upsampling as it adds a bit of air and softness to sometimes harsh sounding CDs.

But be aware, if you're planning on using the USB output, upsampling is off the table.

Circling back on this topic of the Shanling ET-3 Transport. I changed DACs this weekend from the Chord Hugo TT2 to the Holo Audio Spring 3 KTE. This provides more input choices for the ET-3 AND more upsampling options, as well.

Using the I2S output on the Shanling to the Spring 3 I'm finding the sound quality raised across the board.

I'm using DSD512 right now and find it's working really well.

Having a network streamer with only a USB output and a DAC with USB and S/PDIF inputs didn't give me a lot of choices. The Spring three gives me Coax, BNC AES-EBU, I2S and USB inputs.

I2S is the first input I've tried with the Shanling and it's a winner.

By the way, the Holo Audio Spring 3 KTE is a great DAC and I'm finding it a suitable upgrade to the Chord Hugo TT2.

Well, two-days is not much time to get anything comprehensive but the Spring 3 is a great sounding DAC, so far.

I too had a Qutest for 4 or so years. I really liked it. But I wanted to move up to the next level. There were 4 or 5 choices that appealed to me, and my two finalists were the Spring 3 and the Hugo TT2. I had not personally heard either DAC.

I chose the Chord because of my affinity for the Qutest. And, it was a good choice. It expanded on the Chord house sound with a higher resolving DAC. I've had it about a year. I felt I could not go wrong with the Hugo TT2 and I was correct.

But as systems evolve you try different things and find different strengths and weaknesses. I purchased an Audiowise SRC-DX USB to Dual S/PDIF converter and used it with my Hugo TT2. What I found was that I liked the S/DIF input better than the USB input on the Chord. But using a "converter" bothered me. I preferred the sound with the converter but I don't like using a USB powered box to convert USB to S/PDIF.

I looked at changing my SoTM network streamer to get outputs other than the lone USB output on the SMS200 Ultra Neo. But after reading more and more comments from Spring 3 owners about how great it was turned my attention to that DAC and it's very broad input options.

OK, how's it sound? It's not a shocking R2R sound all that different from the Chord FPGA sound, but it is a bit less aggressive? It is clean, clear and precise very detailed and the edges of clicks, drums, piano keys are more etched.  It handles reverb decay much more naturally. These are not huge changes. If you love your Qutest you'll love the Spring 3, as well.