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Today's Transport War: Significant Differences?

I have been reading much these days about computer/hard-drive based transports as being a whole order of magnitude superior to traditional CD transports. In my reading, the camp who believes hard-drive based transports can render major improvements has been most notably represented by Empirical Audio. The camp which suggests that traditional CD transport techonology (or atleast the best of its sort--VRDS-NEO) is still superior has been most notably represented by APL Hi-Fi.

Each of the camps mentioned above are genuine experts who have probably forgotten more about digital than many of us will ever understand. But my reading of each of their websites and comments they have made on various discussion threads (Audiogon, Audio Circle, and their own websites) suggests that they GENUINELY disagree about whether hard-drive based transportation of a digital signal really represents a categorical improvement in digital transport technology. And I am certain others on this site know a lot about this too.

I am NOT trying to set up a forum for a negative argument or an artificial either/or poll here. I want to understand the significant differences in the positions and better understand some of the technical reasons why there is such a significant difference of opinion on this. I am sincerely wondering what the crux of this difference is...the heart of the matter if you will.

I know experts in many fields and disciplines disagree with one another, and, I am not looking for resolution (well not philosophical resolution anyway) of these issues. I just want to better understand the arguments of whether hard-drive based digital transportation is a significant technical improvement over traditional CD transportation.

Respectfully,
pardales

Showing 7 responses by drubin

drubin
3,277 posts
 
The Altmann article seems to align with some of Alex's point of view, if I understand the two of them correctly.
drubin
3,277 posts
 
My reading of the POV of both Empirical and APL is that their preferences are independent of price, or nearly so. Empirical believe that hard-disk systems give us an opportunity to achieve better sound (by reducing jitter to practically nothing) than we can ever get from a transport spinning a disk. APL are vague on the specifics but seem to feel that the "environment" of a computer is far too polluting to yield seriously good sound. Steve says there's only jitter, nothing else to be concerned with. Alex had not yet weighed in on that. I respect and admire them both and hope I have not misstated their positions. Great stuff!
drubin
3,277 posts
 
Correct. But his discussion of the role of power supplies in creating jitter goes to Alex's "noiseball" doctrine. Or maybe I just don't understand this stuff well enough.
drubin
3,277 posts
 
Based on your answers, Pardales, I think the question you meant to ask is, Can the average computer put out a signal equal to that of a dedicated CD player or transport?
drubin
3,277 posts
 
I'm confused. You say the Transporter has a great DAC, but it sounds like you are taking its digital out and using the DAC in your Audio Aero.
drubin
3,277 posts
 
I just re-read Robert Harley's comment on the Memory Player in a recent TAS. He had not heard it, but was so appalled at their claims about errors in reading discs (their Read Until Right process) that he felt compelled to speak up. Harley's a pretty cautious guy and has decent credentials in this area. Unusual for him to take such a strong position like this in print, and I commend him for doing so.

As I said earlier, I was mighty impressed with the sound I heard from the MP, and I have read the other reviews. Harley's point was that, if they are getting great sound, it is not because of Read Until Right. I hope we can get to bottom of this in the near future. It feels like an improved understanding of what's really going with transports and the like is just around the corner. You'd think, at any rate.
drubin
3,277 posts
 
You are correct that he does not single out RUR. I had read HP's comments at the same time and the concept was top of mind when I wrote my post.

Still, it seems to me that RH would maintain that RUR is nonsense for the same reason he takes issue with their claims about CIRC: errors are not a big deal, so the basis for what they claim is the value of RUR is false. If the MP sounds better, it is not because of how it handles errors in reading the bits, is how I interpret his comments.
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