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  3. 180154-170745

Jay’s Audio CDT3-MK3 wins over Aurender W20SE

In search for digital perfection I’ve continuously upgraded my streamer to find Qobuz nirvana. The streamer’s only competition has been my Audiolab 6000CDT which clearly outperformed any Chord 2go/2yu and the Volumio Primo middle grade streamer. Only after buying the flagship Aurender W20SE did my streamer blow the CD transport out of the water, like burn every CD never going back. But studying hi end CD transports I decided on the Jay’s Audio CDT3-MK3 and it has been a revelation. It’s like I’ve never heard a cd before. It so outperforms the W20SE in detail clarity depth richness of tone it’s astonishing. IMHO CD with a hi-end CD transport is far far better than the absolute best streamer in the world. The W20SE is not going up for sale but will be getting much less use from now on.

I’d be interested in the community’s thoughts about CD vs Streaming.

128x128brandonhifi
jon2020's avatar
jon2020
985 posts
 

I am afraid you are comparing apples to oranges.

Playing a CD off a transport should be compared to playing your burnt CD flac files, rather than with streaming. There are too many variables associated with streaming like speed and bandwith peculiar to your home or locale setup, quality of ethernet switch, ethernet cables, ethernet implementation within the dac, etc

If compared to the burnt flac files via usb, again there is the usb implementation within the dac, usb cable quality, etc.

It is quite established today that streaming SQ is generally inferior to that of playing cd"s direct off a transport, or playing flac files off a hard disc either via ethernet or usb, all other things being equal.

If you take streaming out of the comparison, it will be interesting to find out the ranking of SQ with regard to transport, hard drive via ethernet or usb.

Enjoy the SQ of your transport as you rightly should for now.

Cheers!

 

 

brandonhifi's avatar
brandonhifi OP
69 posts
 

I’m listening to SACD in DSD right now from the W20SE’s 4 TB hard drive and it is comparable to the upsampled Jay’s MK3 using the Mscaler. They are both extraordinary, it will take weeks for the MK3 to burn in, 400 hour burn in time they say….  

jasonbourne52's avatar
jasonbourne52
2,863 posts
 

Streaming services often apply data compression - data is discarded so files can fit the digital pipeline. That's what you get for convenience!

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