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/

128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xcreativepart

Agon member vonhelmholtz didn't like the Audiolab 6000CDT, while member creativepart did. Two subjective impressions based upon how a particular transport sounded in two dissimilar systems. Not good enough to stand up in a court of law!

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

 

 

creativepart

I hope you know I was not trying to be negative about the unit. I don’t stream, understand little about streaming, so I focused on my needs, ignoring cost comparisons.

I have room for only 1 unit in my system, thus I want it to have both CD and SACD lasers, and the option of transport or play, better yet simultaneous choice to compare this to that, my friends bring their equipment here occasionally.

IF it's just transport, why does it upscale to Hi-Rez PCM and DSD, wouldn't that occur further down the chain?

 

 

I owned a Shanling CD player 15 years or so ago.   I thought it looked “cool” with the blue lights on the tubes and such.   It was a very poorly made player, broke twice and was actually gaudy looking.   I advertised it here for sale as a “parts only player” and it sold almost as soon as I placed the ad. I saw a used one at a high end store in Framingham and the owner told me that he wouldn’t sell it to me since he knows me. He actually told me to purchase a used Walkman, said it sounded better.  Lol. 

No experience with different spinners other than owning three different CD players since 1980’s. I do know that my last two sound different. Anything and everything in your system can potentially sound different, regardless of function. For example, I am using my most recent CD player as a transport only. Swapping out the S/PDIF digital 75 ohm coax cable to my DAC from $50 blue well made, highly rated (forget brand name) cable to a Silnote cable, there was noticeable improvement! Don’t ask me why or how a digital cable can make a difference, but it did! So, the bits are bits and wire is wire argument doesn’t fly with me. Different spinners can sound different from one another. Not saying more expensive is better, but can certainly sound different.