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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 1 response by slothman

slothman
311 posts
 
Regardless of the way we choose to play our Redbook, it makes me wonder if those in control of the CD mastering process are truly as critical as we are in our listening. How perfect is the mastering process? For that matter, look around and see how many professional recording devices these days have a USB port - what do you suppose that's for? Connecting to a "Noiseball" I reckon. Tells me that somewhere in the recording process our beloved 1's and 0's are quite possibly passing through a Noiseball. If so, is it possible that some of that noise generated garbage is being passed on to us in the final product? Are we just trying in vain to fix garbage that was already there?

I'm using a Meridian 518 to send my 1 and 0's from my computer to my DAC. My SPDIF converter is a Waveterminal U24 - which happens to be a professional audio device with , you guessed it, a USB port. The Meridian is supposedly a unit that (according to the manual) has been used in the final mastering process by Chesky records and Sony Classical, to name a few. Considering the above, perhaps I am doing no worse with the end product than what is being done in the studios in the first place?
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