Do the CD transports have „sound”?

It's actually very simple - the turntable is a mechanical device with one major goal - to provide accurate mechanical rotation, and to prevent the vibrations from the motor and environment to affect the sound wave picked by the stylus. I never heard that CD transport can have problems with the rotation speed that can make the sound a semi tone higher or lower, for example. The anti-vibration qualities of a CDT can have some effect, but not to the extent to affect the sound - it's just possible to skip if someone dance close to the CDT or something like this. So I can't see any ground for comparison between a turntable and a CDT. Turntable is purely mechanical unit, while CDT extracts and outputs digital data.

 

16 pages later you haven't learned anything.

 

May be you're right, but at least I know what's a turntable

 

A bit harsh don´t You think. Especially since what You write here is; a personal attack, a straw man argument and a petitio principii, all at the same time, not bad.

 

No you need a DAC

 

That wouldn't surprise me

 

Apologies if such an explanation has already been linked to, but could someone explain exactly what differences they're hearing between different transports feeding the same DAC? Presumably if they can be detected by the ears then they should be easy enough to prove with a simple measurement.

 

It's not like that at all. It's simply that, as consumers, we have the tools available to us now (that we didn't, even ten years ago) that enable us to make smarter buying decisions. If it's true that different transports, sending identical bit-perfect data to a DAC, can influence the sound then this can easily be measured by a great number of us. Anyone capable of doing a needledrop already has the tools required to measure the way in which a CDT supposedly influences the data stream. I cannot understand why someone would find that idea off putting. From the limited testing data we have, it would appear that CDTs do not influence the stream in an audible way. I would like to see some data to the contrary. The differences in DACs, for example, can easily be measured and shown. I don't see why asking for measurements of CDTs (before potentially buying one as the case may be for people reading this thread) should cause such outrage.

 

Wouldn´t it be much more interesting, as a whole, if consumers were on the side of the consumers? What I mean is: one important factor is the makers obvious intrinsic interest, not to be forced to show what they claim. Surely in many cases this isn´t hard to show, per se, the problem is that they have made it impossible, by impossible claims.

 

I didn't believe transports made a difference until I heard it myself.

I had been using an ancient Technics SLP-999 CD player since 1990. In 2012, I bought the Audio-GD Ref 7.1 DAC, thus relegating the Technics to being a transport only. This multi-bit DAC is brilliant and an absolute keeper.

This combination was fantastic, but I still hankered for a more modern transport. Eventually, I snagged the matching Audio-GD CD-FV7 dedicated CD transport: http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/CD7FV/CD7SEFVEN.htm
This 16 kg behemoth, with massively superior power supply and overkill build quality, should have trashed the Technics, moreso being a perfect synergistic match with the Audio-GD DAC.

Yet ...

Again and again, disc after disc, I kept preferring the old Technics player. There was something just 'right' / 'organic' / 'rich' in the tones that made listening so much more enjoyable. The "sound" of the Audio-GD transport seemed a wee bit 'thin' / 'cold' / 'clinical', for want of a better description. NOTHING else in the system was different, except the two transports.

I really, honestly, desperately, wanted the Audio-GD transport to win, but my ears were telling me otherwise. Reluctantly, I sold off the Audio-GD transport.

Since then, I discovered that the even older Technics SLP-990 sounded even better than the latter -999 model, especially in the bass and mid-range detail. The -990 model was 2 kg heavier and had dedicated power supplies to the analog and digital circuits, whereas the -999 shared a common power supply.

Still, on paper the Audio-GD transport was way superior to both these Technics players; yet the oldest one of the lot won easily in the sound stakes.

Go figure ...

 

I've had numerous anti- jitter devices in the past (audio alchemy dti, sonic frontiers ultra jitterbug, G&W Labs dsp/upsampler) and they all made an audible difference to the data stream. These were attached to cheap transports like a Adcom carousel cd changer, a Sony and Denon Dvd player to a middling McCormack SST audiophile transport. What was the purpose of an anti-jitter box? Obvious. To decrease jitter before it reaches the dac. To add more to the experience, digital coax cables also have a sonic signature. Stereophile had an ancient article on transport jitter way back from 1993 called - Transport of Delight: CD Transport Jitter. Google it. Basically, when word clock timing is different the sound will be different.
A Transport of Delight: CD Transport Jitter Page 9 »

 

This was never about learning anything. It never is. It's about certain types of people trying to bend others to their will.

As I said some 300 posts back, this is nothing more than a glorified cable thread. Audiophile static warfare. Have fun in the mud with the rats, gents. See you a mile up the road at the next virtually-identical conflagration. Or maybe it'll be a mile down the road next time. Makes no difference when all is said and done. All the same.




D.D.

 

I don´t agree at all. I think it´s very much about learning mostly. Few are so educated so they can say they have nothing to learn, that would just be silly.

 

Thanks for posting your experience. Bob Katz, on page 43 of his Mastering Audio book, has a graph which plots the frequency range on the horizontal axis and then plots "subjective terms we use to define excess or deficiency of the various frequency ranges" on the graph. He puts thin in the 100-600 Hz deficiency range, bass range is 80-250 Hz, and mid-range is 250 Hz - 2 kHz. If your subjective assessment of the equipment is correct, then a frequency response graph of the Audio-GD transport should show a deficiency in the 100-600 Hz region, whilst the SLP-990 vs -999 would show some difference in the 80-250 Hz and 250 Hz - 2 kHz regions.

I'm not doubting your recounting of the devices. However, if I were to buy a digital device that showed anything but a flat line from 80 Hz to 2 kHz, I'd send it back.

 

And that is the kind of learning that makes an impact. When you have experienced it all on your own without thousands of filters telling you what you should or should not hear. I'm pleased to see that you can confidently attest to your experiential database.

 

Cool graphic - like it

 

that is a good graphic. I'll remember it next time I want to put a bit of EQ into my digital files.

 

Good post.

However, I now think that you, me and a few others with ears should change our vocabulary. Instead of saying "digital transports make a difference" we should be saying "a good digital transport sounds much better than a bad one". That the good ones are in most cases more expensive than the bad ones is a given. I am affraid the pessimists are trying to turn this thing to their advantage to allow for "minor differences in sound" that are "a matter of taste". The OP has already shown us how it is done a few posts back.

Not that this will make any difference - I am not that naive.

 

Thanks for your suggestion but I don't have a bone of contention to make other than repeating myself that differences are heard between transports; cheap or expensive ones. Subjective qualities tend to be a personal matter too. If people want to keep their pessimism then so be it. No sweat off of anyone's back.

 

I am confused here. Did the various jitter busters that you used not make the sound better, but barely different? I have used the Audio Alchemy jitter buster and it improved the sound, which ultimately led to my acquiring of the dCS Purcell - a jitter buster and upsampler in the same enclosure.

 

These days I tend to listen to USB dacs. On the other hand, out of the 'jitter busters' I have owned or had listened to, and that includes the Genesis Digital Time Lens but I haven't owned that one, I've noticed differences to a degree that were all repeatable. The one that sounded the best, even though it should not have because it didn't filter jitter bellow 20hz (or something close to that number) was the Sonic Frontiers Ultra Jitterbug. That little thing expanded the soundstage and made digital sound more like analog. Like a tube amp. Right now I use a Marantz SA15 S1 as a transport in my bedroom system. It's hooked up directly to an EAD 7000III dac. I don't use an anti-jitter device for that pair. No reason since I'm pleased with the sound I am getting from that combo. Sure, it's an SACD player. But I will tell you this. Even though the SA15 uses a crystal CS4397 chip, I like the sound from the Marantz as a 'transport only' going into the prehistoric multibit EAD. One more caveat. Both components needed a good power cord to sound very good.

Back to the debate. If transports had no sound there would be no issue with jitter. If transports had no sound there would be no anti-jitter devices. If transports had no sound there would be no need for beefy/isolated power supplies (the more the better). Back to reality. All transports carry a sonic signature. All transports have jitter. All Coax and Balanced S/PDIF will degrade sound quality by adding jitter. The trick is, and always has been, to minimize the time domain/amplitutde jitter impact on the dac and to diminish power and digital noise.

 

I read every page of this article (click the "page title" link for it), and it is probably the best explanation of why digital music can confuse people that I've ever read. It shows how the same 1's and 0's can be "interpreted" differently by different devices and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who's confused about the whole issue. I have a cheap hi-fi set-up so there's no confirmation bias on my part. Just an open mind as to how things work at a scientific level. Read all the pages for an excellent explanation as to how digital information is actually read in an analogue fashion by CD players. Try it. Keep an open mind. It may be counter-intuitive, but digital isn't quite what it at first appears to be...

 

I think I have an open mind on this one. What I'm having trouble reconciling are the articles that talk about how error prone it is to extract the bit stream from a CD and the articles that talk about doing a bit-for-bit comparison between different transports and seeing no differences. Extracting the data sounds like a hard problem that has been solved.

If that isn't the part that is causing differences, then it is further down the path - moving that signal to the DAC. But errors introduced there are either small (the magnitude of the jitter effects described so far are very small) or fatal (no signal at all).

The "why" of the differences is fascinating. I don't see a compelling, measurable reason yet.

And I will listen to several transports, hopefully next weekend.

 

Think of it as the same language (the bits are the same) but every component in the path is an interpreter, speaking with different cadences and speed, in order to present your subjective ears with the version you understand (music).