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Old Vs New ..... Transport and dac.

Hi All,
I've been putting together a Vintage system based around a pair if Altec Lansing 604 duplex speakers in their big cabinets 620a , and a pair of Leak pre and power amps from the 50's / 60's.... Now, I was going to go for a turntable front end, but then I got to thinking I might put a decent digital front end together for a change. Ive been buying 50c second hand cd's lately like they are going out of fashion (which they are I suppose) Any way I was thinking of getting the latest shanling CD transport ET3 and a Denafripps mid range Dac. Like the Pontus or te one up from there. I thought that woudld be a decent attempt. BUT THEN... A local Transport and dac came up for sale for around the same money (3k) .... A Reimyo CDT - 777 Transport & Reimyo 999EX Limited Edition DAC. The Transport is running flawlessly and the dac was updted to this spec backi n 2018 by Kuichi San at Combak Harmonix in 2017 I thnk.

I lusted after then back when they came out, I love the form factor, the fact it's a SOTA classic transport and dac etc and the Tonal focus of Japanese design in audio( I know this is a horrible generalisation, but you know what I mean).

Soooooo. My question is do you think that the Japanese pair with their engineering / design and of course sound quality , would stand up to the more modern Chinese pairing. I'm more excited about the Reimyo Transport and Dac, than the Shanling and Denafripps. 

My main front ends have all been Vinyl in the past so this is something new for me. I enjoy a focus on Tone and overall performance in my systems, rather than the spotlighting and the search for the ultimate detail.

Anyway, I'd appreciate your thoughts on the above... Thanks for your advice and Help.  

 

borg7x9
ericrhodes1's avatar
ericrhodes1
67 posts
 

So it's an upsampled Burr-Brown PCM1704U. For what it's worth. The Pontus will sound better. 

borg7x9 OP
102 posts
 

Hi Eric, I wouldn’t be surprised at all… however, worst case scenario is I can use the transport as a classic great looking thing, and if I don’t like the dac as much as I’d hoped I can just get a new dac. Even though it only has a spdif over coaxial , no i2s. Not sure how restrictive that might end up being. I have a friend who has a Denafripps dac, not sure which one. Maybe a comparison will be in order. 
 

Thanks for your help. 

oberoniaomnia
198 posts
 

With CD player/transport, I would worry most about gapless playing ability. Read reviews and go from there. I assume you will use digital out from CD and feed it into DAC, so "sound quality" of the CD player is a non-issue. The other factor to consider it the remote, and where you place your CD player in relation to your seating position. Some remotes require line of sight and have narrow acceptance angle, whereas others are more forgiving in that regard.

With DACs, digital technology is moving fast, so I would tend to go with newer iteration. However, I have not heard significant objective quality differences with DACs differing 20x in price (250 vs. 5K). A bit of flavor difference, but not one is clearly and all the time better than the other. 

my 2c.

glennewdick's avatar
glennewdick
1,814 posts
 

My  thoughts are also the newer DAC will sound better and if its a nice vintage system i would look for an R2R DAC. Also to consider can you get replacement for that CD transport, specifically the drive and optical parts. I do not know what that company used for drives and optical sensor but probably not available anymore. 

Good friend of mine owns a used/vintage audio shop and has stopped taking CD players/transports in that are 10 years old or more due to no parts for them. He's got a very expensive player he can not get parts for now and its now a paper weight.  

Don't fall for the "I wanted one back in the day" thing it could be a disappointment in the future you.   

devinplombier
903 posts
 

@borg7x9 

If it were me, I'd get the Reimyo pair in a heartbeat because a) build quality, b) desirability, c) fits in a vintage system far better than modern Chinese midfi, d) resale value.

This of course assumes that your audition at the seller's concludes to your satisfaction.

If the Reimyo uses a Philips CD-PRO transport, there are still tens of thousands of those in daily use out there. Parts availability should not be an issue for a long time. It's quite unlikely you'll ever need to replace the entire CD-PRO; replacement laser pickups cost $50 or less.

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