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cheap cd transport digital out to a hiquality dac

M

mercalia

pfm Member
Just wondering if given a high quality dac, you need a very expensive cd transport or will a cheap £35 dvd/cd player be just as good? assuming a digital connection. Will the difference be that big ( for most mortals)?
 
a) no although it's possible to have an output bad enough to make a difference I suppose. No one actually seems to measure these things so it's guesswork.
b) if it did make a difference then what you would need would be a transport clock locked to the dac. Not many of these are made, although they can be altered to do it. Do not assume that expensive fancy transports necessarily have better outputs than cheap ones.
Fancy aluminium faceplates, top loading, turntable like construction are unlikely to make any difference. They add plausibility though.
 
If the DAC is well designed, the only requirement of the transport is to read the disc as well as possible.
This can lead to issues with old non-Redbook compliant "CD"s with computer content made in an attempt at copy protection
 
My AppleTV does that, but there doesn't seem to be much difference in sound quality between that and the CD original. I've used Philips and Sony DVD/Blu-ray into the same DAC and, again, the sound quality seems fine.
 
An old DVD player into my TeddyDAC easily outperformed my Naim CDX, XPS.

Later I switched to my Roksan DP1 transport and this was better again, but not by very much though.
 
mercalia said:
Just wondering if given a high quality dac, you need a very expensive cd transport or will a cheap £35 dvd/cd player be just as good? assuming a digital connection. Will the difference be that big ( for most mortals)?
Click to expand...

I'd look at a better old DVD player from Denon or Pioneer for £50-100. Will it sound better? Probably not but they look very nice and are extremely well built.
 
As an owner of a £1700 Cyrus CDXT Signature transport, I've had it proved to myself that the quality of the transport is very important. The DAC can only work with the signal its given and the transport is the first link in the chain. If the DAC is fed an inferior signal from a cheap transport I don't think it will sound as good.
 
drummerdave said:
As an owner of a £1700 Cyrus CDXT Signature transport, I've had it proved to myself that the quality of the transport is very important. The DAC can only work with the signal its given and the transport is the first link in the chain. If the DAC is fed an inferior signal from a cheap transport I don't think it will sound as good.
Click to expand...
Okay...
Are you sure that you have bought anything more than a cyrus cdp in a slightly tarted up box with the dac section removed and the external psu incorporated?

I'm not saying you have or haven't necessarily, but I can't see anything much (even in the marketing) to show what they might have done to improve the quality of the digital output, which is what matters, apart from some vague references to filtering. Is the S/PDIF transmitter and clocking any different than in a standard cd model?

They haven't bothered to take a clock input from the dac which is enough to make it clear that this is no sort of an assault on the state of the art.

Sorry -I'm not meaning to disrespect what I'm sure is a lovely thing to own. I may be wrong and perhaps a crack team of cyrus engineers has beavered away to produce a perfect digital output.
 
I use two different players as transports, a Sony ES machine and a Pioneer PDS machine. In isolation they both sound excellent, but one is much more vibrant and forward than the other. Using Chord 2 Qute.
 
There some superb transports that you can get for £50-ish, no need to spend megabucks. Some, like some Pioneer DVD players, actually re-read on error & buffer the data i.e. less error correction.
 
dspatterson said:
I use two different players as transports, a Sony ES machine and a Pioneer PDS machine. In isolation they both sound excellent, but one is much more vibrant and forward than the other. Using Chord 2 Qute.
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The Sony ES is more vibrant & forward? Pioneer PDS sound seems to be on the smoother side to me.
 
I have to say for me in my system the Pioneer 904 is the more vibrant and forward. The Sony is the smoother.Both sub £100 second hand and great units in my opinion. BUT certainly different.
 
dspatterson said:
I have to say for me in my system the Pioneer 904 is the more vibrant and forward. The Sony is the smoother.Both sub £100 second hand and great units in my opinion. BUT certainly different.
Click to expand...

Ah cool, my comparisons at home have been with a PD-S505 & DV-505, the DV-505 being more 'clear' and 'vibrant'... both better than old Philips / Marantz transports though.
 
The 505 certainly has the the great reputation and you prob pay a premium, I wonder how much difference between the different stable platter units.I can vouch for the cheaper 904.
 
dspatterson said:
The 505 certainly has the the great reputation and you prob pay a premium, I wonder how much difference between the different stable platter units.I can vouch for the cheaper 904.
Click to expand...

The 904 is better than the 505. :)

Yours has twin mains transformers & better power supplies. Same as used for the Tom Evans Eikos player...
 
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