What makes a good transport?

Bagsie needs a new transport.

I am only aware of Teacs which cost less than £8 000 000 and are supposed to be pretty decent.

If there are no other dedicated transports knocking about s/h for less than a lottery win, and aren't 300yrs old, what should one look for primarily in a cdp, instead of a dedicated transport. Which manufacturers use the best transport mechs etc. What else is relevent?

How important are transports vis-a-vis DAC's?

Thankee

 

Surely someone has an opinion!

I must say I'm interested in this question myself, as I've never really looked into whether my Arcam Delta 250 transport is much good in the grand scheme of things...

 

Cheers for bump Martin.

Following on......CDP's are generally regarded to be much better than DVD's for CD replay. But if they are to be only used as a transport, and are comparitively priced, are the differences as marked? I suppose this comes down to my previous question regarding the importance of transports vis-a-vis DAC's.

I suppose a deicated transport is the best option, but there appears to be little available at the 'bottom end' of the market.

Ta

 

A Few Items to look for, seperated PSU's (for motor/digital), good transport Mechanisms, quality casings (internal damping ability), micro vibration resistance, easy of use, easy on the eye. XLR/I2S options would be beneifical. Wm

 

Who's bagsie?

Anyway, dedicated transports which are reasonably priced - there are the Teacs of course - quite a few P-1s (like mine) around the £300 mark last time I looked on hififorsale.com - and also the P-500 and P-700 which come up from time to time for about the same price. The P-500 and P-700 are "shoebox" sized which makes them more difficult to modify (clocks etc) if you wanted to.

There's the Tag transports CDT20R and CDT20R T2L (the only difference being that the latter has the sync-link option for using the clock signal from a DAC but I believe it's a Tag proprietary link so useless unless you have one of their AV processors or digital pre-amps - the DAC20 doesn't have that link).

Until the recent Tag "debacle" Tag were selling these off (old stock) for around £8-900 but that dropped to about £5-600. I don't know if they still have any left but there might be a few on the s/h market. An excellent transport by all accounts.

XLR (AES/EBU) balanced digital output is nice to have (assuming you have a compatible DAC). WM mentions I2S output but the number of bits of kit (transports, DACs, upsamplers) which support that interface can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Then there's always the Meridian 500 and 200 transports coming up on eBay from time to time. I wouldn't bother with the 200 though.

The AudioNote CDT Zero and CDT 1 transports are apparently not bad. Voodoo has a CDT1 (it's in his avatar). Don't think they are too outrageously priced.

Michael.

Michael.

 

academic question - all cdp's obviosly sound the same

 

Err, no actually

 

Actually it's a CDT2 .

The comments made have been pretty accurate in that there aren't really many dedicated transports at the lower end of the market (I believe Rotel used to make a couple a few years back) but why would you need such a thing at that end of the market when 99% of CDP's have a digi out.

My CDT2 uses one of the common 'high-end' transport mechanisms in the shape of the Phillips CD12 pro. That specific mechanism is used for top loaders whereas the likes of the Pioneer Stable Platter is a drawer based transport. Mine is fussy with discs (mostly from the BMG label ) and won't touch CD-R's burnt at a speed of over x2 but it's solid and being a top loader is regarded as being more stable during use than a standard drawer mechanism.

My Sony 9000ES DVDP uses the Sony fixed pickup mechanism which moves the disc over the laser as opposed to vice-versa. It's a good transport and has been shown to give an output with pretty low jitter (<200 psec). However, there are so many elements which, as WM said, can have a distinctive affect. The Audio Note CDT3 is feckin' expensive mainly because, unlike the CDT2, it has a seperate PSU. Whether that justifies the cost hike only you can decide.

The TAG20 that Michael mentioned is IMO a steal at the current price. It's well built, reliable, comes with a good back up service from TAG if you need a repair and has a plethora of outputs.

Which output type is best is very owner specific. Some prefer XLR digi outs to RCA and RCA to Optical but they all have pro's and cons. There are also lots of proprietry connections to kick up a fuss about: Wadia's Glass Optical, I2S, Firewire etc.

Did changing to a dedicated transport make a big difference in my system ?
Well, it did in my old system but I can't judge at the moment with my new pre/power.

Why not check out here to see what's doing the rounds :

http://buy.audiogon.com/cgia/fsb.pl?dgtltran&1&ctg&st1

if I was to give one piece of advice it would be to ensure that if you want a top loader, you'll should ensure that you'll always have plenty of space to open it. If you put it on an AV rack, for example, you'll find it a pain in the arse loading discs with a shelf above it !

The AudioNote CDT2 : looks a bit like a teapot doesn't it ?

 

Second hand DPA Enlightenment Transport is really pretty good - the later 1998/9 24 bit version (stainless steel case and black acrylic front panel) is dependable, uses a TEAC non-VRDS mechanism and has a nice Rob Watts (obviously) dithering circuit. There are no obsolete/unrepairable parts as far as I know and specialists like Chevin Audio will repair if there are problems.

I've listened to other transports around the £500 - £1000 mark and not heard any to rival it.

 

Thanks, informative replies

The CDT20R looks like a good proposition if it is available for the sort of money Michael mentioned? It should 'in theory' make a decent marriage with the DAC20 then as well?

or there is always an integrated........

thanks for comments though. Teach me a little.

 

I have my doubts about that, TBH. I can think of plenty of world class CDPs that have a flimsy plastic drawer.

-- Ian

 

Very true Ian, just look at Tag. They decided to develop a front load transport and discovered that the performance diffs between it and the original top loader were almost negligable. However, the ladies think their cooooooool :music:.

 

Dino what about one these

http://www.avmaxmag.com/archive_article.asp?article_id=159

I can bring mine around to try. Might be a task finding one though.

 

Quite a beast mandeep - didn't realise they were that cheap. Can't remember where you live? It wouldn't work out that expensive either for something like that, as obviously i would have no requirement for the DAC then.

 

I was talking to David Heaton of Audio Synthesis about transports suitable for their DAX Discrete and he reckons that, despite its age, the best transport out there is the TEAC P30.

Coincidence would have it that Merlin's offloading his

Also, one of the few manufacturers to build their transports from scratch rather than buying them in is Audiomeca

I guess you could also try the ART V2 in transport only configuration as well.

None of these are cheap but they all cost less than 8 000 000.

reg

 

I live in Slough. The rrp is £1000 but ended up paying 630ish new.
Not heard a Dac20 system to compare with but for the money I'm not complaining. I did see a s/h one going for £450 but norm is £600/700.

 

Did i sell you a marantz amp a long time back? Or am i thinking of someone else?

Sounds like a bargain that machine, at those s/h prices. I'll PM in due course, check my calender.

cheers

 

Yep thats me.

Tis a good little spinner.

 

How about the Denon 2900?

Handles pretty much everything, and then use your DAC for stereo playback?

 

Sorry, just to clarify - no real need for DVD,SACD or any of that. No TV in the listening patch anyway. Just CD required.