SLOT LOADING CD MECHANISMS - DO THE DAMAGE CD'S?


Of recent, I have been considering the purchase of a new CD transport (no DAC). There are several that have caught my attention; - - one in particular is made by AUDIOLAB. The one factor that leaves me "hanging", conceptually speaking, is the fact that AUDIOLAB exclusively uses "slot loading" CD mechanisms.
I have owned a couple of good quality CD players employing this type mechanism, and in both cases, eventually discovered marring to the playing surface of the CD. I am fanatic about proper preservation of CD playing surfaces. I certainly don’t want more CD’s ending up in the garbage can. (and I don’t like polishing, making a bad situation, worse !)

In turn, I have read many articles and customer reports complaining of the same issue. I consider AUDIOLAB products to be of a quality and performance level that leaves me somewhat dumbfounded as to why they would employ the use of a questionable mechanism that has so many historic issues.
So, what have they done that would be any different than other companies using this concept? I can’t imagine that they would invest the R&D money to develop their own proprietary mechanism.
Anyone out there that can validify the credibility (or lack of) AUDIOLAB’S use of "slot loading ?. Direct experience would help the most.
128x128axpert

Showing 1 response by dafox

I bought an Audiolab 6000cdt 6 months ago and a couple of months ago noticed that it is lightly scratching my cds,  I really like the sound of this transport and after reading many comments about it and similarly priced transports belive that it is best in its price range. I'm not going to keep the Audiolab, I'm in contact with the company that I bought it from, listenup on line, waiting to hear what they can do for me. After reading reviews and user comments I bought a Jays Audio cdt2 mk3 but so far prefer the sound of the Audiolab, the Audiolab has a fuller richer sound. Jays says it needs 400 hours of burn in so thats what I'm doing now.