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Is it caused by the transport or the dac?

I am auditioning a new transport. I am currently using a Theta Data Basic II with the Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista 21 DAC. I'm looking for a transport because the Data Basic II is rather old, I had to replace the drawer unit last summer, and basically I'm concerned that's its time is near.

Auditioning the new transport is puzzling. There's what seems to be 'funny' things going on, and I don't know if it's in the transport's reading of the CD, or the DAC's receiving and translating what's being sent to it.

At times the bass is almost non-existent with the new transport and at other times fine, whereas the Theta Data Basic II is consistantly powerful in the bass region. The bass seems to disappear more when the music gets complicated.

The same for the midrange. If the music is simple, i.e. vocalist, one or two non-distorted guitars, bass and simple drums. the sound is much better than through the Theta. Better textures, dynamics, etc. However, add distorted guitars, overdubbed guitars, powerful drums, basically anything more complex, and a general smearing occurs where the clarity of the individual instruments and vocals had been.

Sometimes there's even a very quick stop in the music throughout the song, like 'I can't figure out what the data is that I'm dealing with, so I won't output anything!'

This only occurs with the new unit, it doesn't happen at all with the Theta. Like I said though, on simple songs the music sounds quite a bit better in all areas.

Is the transport having the problem reading the data in the complicated passages? Is the transport sending more information to the M.F. Tri-Vista 21 DAC than the DAC can process? This is perplexing!

Thanks,
Chuck
krell_man
stehno
1,453 posts
 
I was going to suggest the problem is probably a resonance transfer isssue but then I noticed you had Star Sound's products everywhere. Therefore, it's probably safe to rule that out.

As you know there are certainly some decent or better cdps available that could easily compete or even surpass the performance of an equally priced transport/dac config.

I would at least demo a good cdp in place of the transport/dac config. If nothing else, less can be more.

-IMO
jahaira
108 posts
 
Sorry but, which unit is your new transport? You talked about the Theta Data Basic and your DAC but don't mention the new unit.

How long have you used this transport? What cables are you using? Is it brand new? Does it uses an external power supply?
krell_man OP
827 posts
 
The new transport is a dealer demo that I'm auditioning, so it does have a number of hours on it. I'm also running it 24 hours a day myself. I don't want to name the transport because if it doesn't work in my system, that doesn't mean that it won't work in someone else's.

It's gotten really good reviews, and I don't want anyone not trying it because of this particular situation. I'm wondering if it's so good at retrieving the data, it's sending more data than the Tri-Vista 21 can handle.

I have the DAC set to upsampling to 192Hz and maybe it needs to be lower. I listened to the new Cary 303/300 and noticed that the higher the upsampling rate on certain recordings, the more raspy it sounded. I assume due to the dithering.
jdombrow
371 posts
 
Take the unit back to the dealer and see if the problem occurs with other gear. Perhaps the transport is faulty.
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