So is this as good as you need for a transport?

Really, is there a difference in transports?

Samsung UBD-M8500 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Player | Price & Reviews | Massdrop

 

You know, I wonder about the same thing. Would I competent player serve well as a transport? Funny, I’m expecting a delivery of a Schiit Bifrost today. I planning on using an older but in perfect condition Pioneer 45A as a transport. From what I understand, we’re on the right track. But then again, there’s a lot I don’t know. I’m interested in hearing what others think.

 

I've read some people using the original Sony PlayStation as a transport, specifically because they didn't believe anything more expensive would perform any/that much better. No idea if there's any truth to it.

 

FWIW, I cannot tell the difference between my CEC TL-5 ($1500 -- and a pain to acquire in the states, have to go to the Canadian distributor if you want 110V, and pay by wire transfer) and a Tascam CD-200 (paid around $250), feeding an AudioNote Kits 4.1 LE or TEAC UD-301 by co-ax or optical.

What I look for in transport is quiet operation, build quality, and reading reliability. The CEC has that in spades, including top loading and use of a puck (feels like spinning vinyl!)! However, not worth $1500. The Tascam is just as good and is the quietest transport I have ever used. You just have to remove the "ears" used for rackmount, which is easy to do, otherwise the Tascam will look odd in the rack.

The Meridian G08 does make a difference compared to the CEC or Tascam. I am not sure if this is because it has a ROM drive and buffer that makes sure it is reading the disk correctly, or because its digital output is upsampled whether you like it or not ! (i.e., the co-ax output of the meridian is processed). I prefer the Meridian as a transport -- but I prefer it even more as a balanced source.

 

I asked the Cambridge Audio importer if, when used solely as a transport, there was a difference between their transport only rig and one of their cheap cd players.

He said he doubted you could hear a difference.

So how far does this go? Run your $129 Samsung 4k blu-ray player into a dac and you're done?

 

I use my Sony UBP-X800 Universal Player solely as a transport (paid $125 on MassDrop), connected to a Schiit Gungnir MB. Sounds good to me!

 

Keep in mind, that Samsung model only has Digital Optical (Toslink), HDMI and Ethernet outputs. No Digital Coax output.

 

Pretty much.

Except I cannot find a co-ax output on that Samsung (please confirm), only optical. Most cheap CD players have both co-ax and optical. Much easier to get a qood and cheap co-ax cable than optical cable.

 

Any half-decent CD player is going to be able to extract digital data from the disc with zero errors, and transport it down a digital output. There's no need to overthink it.

 

I don't know how important the transport is but the dCS Puccini sounds amazing and dCS use the Teac vrds neo vmk 3 transport.

 

Someone brought up that same question about an Emotiva deck, comparing it to a sub $100 unit, when both are used as transports. This was on the Emotiva forum and their engineer stated that someone would hear no difference.

I have an Oppo 93 and 203 and they are hooked up via HDMI, to the processor for video, but for audio, I run a digital out, into a digital input on my Peachtree unit. Before I had the Oppo's, I used to use inexpensive decks as transports and all of the units that I have used, sound pretty much the same to me.

Digital data is digital data, it has no sound, until you decode it back to an analog waveform.

As @MichaelXX2 stated, "There's no need to overthink it."

 

I think the role of the transport is very much undecided at this time. Esoteric is the best CD player I have heard and they went to great lengths to construct the transport. There was a test done swapping out transports and DACs and the transport was found to have more effect on the sound than the DAC FWIW. REFERENCE COMPONENTS-DIGITAL SOURCES see Jan 2011 update on page.
I have no idea why a transport would be critical because reading data by a player or computer is very precise. Perhaps jitter is introduced.

 

I used a $79 (or so) Panasonic player feeding the amazing Rega DAC for awhile. Great music playback.

I currently have a Pioneer Elite universal player, and if/when my Naim CD5 dies, I shall merely buy the current Rega DAC-R and carry on quite happily.

 

I do not believe that it is easy to read data from the disc without errors, hence the need for error correction. For example, when ripping discs, you can get different checksums with some drives. Hence the need for "secure ripping" which takes a lot of time (as the drive has to go back and verify) -- not suitable for playback with a transport.

I do not question the superiority of the Esoteric transports in reading data from the disc accurately. The question is whether you can hear the difference with the more accurate reading. Some of us do not.

 

I recently A/B tested digital transports. My expectation going into it was that I wouldn't hear any differences because digital transports are fungible. To one input on my DAC I connected an Oppo 103, to another input I connected the Allo DigiOne. At first, I figured there must be a volume difference to account for why the Allo sounded so much better then the Oppo's SPDIF out. Broke out the SPL meter and nope, identical volume. One was just better then the other.

Does this mean everybody needs to go out and buy a DCS transport? Of course not. But try some things out before deciding what does and doesn't make a difference.

 

I am hardly a digital expert since I listen almost entirely to vinyl. But when I do listen to CDs I have a DAC (Audio Note Kits 3.1) and thus need some kind of transport. I started with an Oppo DV-970 and didn’t like the sound at all—-poor bass extension and too much digital glare. A later model, the Oppo DV-980, had a more balanced sound and less glare. Then I tried a Cambridge CSX transport and it sounded better than either of the Oppos.

Bottom line: transports make a difference in sound quality.

 

Or, some DACs are, for some reason, more sensitive to transport feeding them? I could use anything (cheap DVD deck, pricey dedicated transport, whatever) and the Rega DAC I had sounded the same (which was wonderful). I get your implied point, though: results may vary. I would suspect someone with a topline dCS stack might be best served using the dCS transport, for example.

 

Yes or no. Depending who you ask. Transports are up there with cables.

 

Good observation.

 

I'd be more concerned with using a transport that minimizes mechanical/ drive motor noise.

 

No, nothing beats cables regarding subjectivity.

 

I have heard huge differences between transports. How much of a difference one will hear will depend on the DACs immunity to jitter and other system dependent aspects.

 

I'll probably get flamed by "the bits is bits" crowd and the "cables is cables" crowd but IMO:
The digital cable that connects transport to DAC is the most important cable in the system.
If it's not right everything else suffers. Please note here, I'm not saying the most expensive cable.
And yes, transports do make a difference as well.
If you want to optimize your system you have to pay attention to these things.

 

Those (bolded, above) would be among my considerations for a transport. Also, I would wonder about the durability of the transport. Will it be more likely to provide trouble-free service for 2 years or 10 years. Basically I think that mechanical aspects are worth considering, even if exactly the same 1's and 0's get extracted from the device and delivered to the DAC either way.

 

Interesting. I would without question say an SPDIF cable is the least important cable in the system because it has the fewest variables. There's really only so many ways you can make and terminate coaxial cable.