Sony SCD1 vs. Mark Lev 37 as transports

Hi Jel, If SACD isn't important to you, you will not mate a better transport to the SF P3 than the SF T3. Those two were designed as a pair and have the IS2E interface. IS2E is better than standard interfaces because it uses a timing signal from the Processor to control the output of the Transport. This nearly eliminates jitter, which is the main sonic difference you will find between transports.

Either go with the SCD-1 for the SACD benefit or go with a Transport 3.

Darrell, to answer the question directly, given the two choices of the original question, I'd definitely go with the SCD-1 because the Lev 37 would be sub-optimal for the money. But, I still stick by my recommendation of the SF Transport 3 for optimal CD performance with the P3. Unless Jel already owns a Lev 37, why bother considering it with a Processor 3?

A couple of more points. I spoke to Sonic Frontiers on Friday and they told me their future plans. They are going to be offering an upsampling upgrade for the Processor 3 within two months. Expected upgrade price is $1895. A

They are designing an SACD player, but Sony keeps changing the transport design and they are waiting until things firm up and the transport prices go down before offering it as a product. I suspect this is why we have only seen the Sony and Accuphase SACD players so far. Also, Sony has not released an interface for SACD yet so we won't be seeing any SACD capable DACs for a long time.