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If you still spin CD's their is a reference level Transport for reasonable money

I just got in-house the Jay's Audio CDT-2 MK3 transport to review for hometheaterreview.com.  The build quality and physical appearance make it hard to believe that it retails for around $2,400.  Right out of the crate not even broken in yet, it's out performing my CEC double belt transport in the reference system.  It retains all the liquidity and analog smoothness of the belt driven transport but offers more details, tighter bass frequencies, and a larger layered soundstage with more air between the players.

Alvin, of Vinshine Audio set this review up with me, so if you go to his website you can get a lot more details/pictures on this transport.  The reason I was motivated to review a CD transport was I received scores of requests from my readers asking what is a great sounding transport, for a reasonable amount of money.  So far, in spades the Jay's Audio CDT-2 MK3 fits the bill easily.   
teajay

Showing 7 responses by nonoise

nonoise's avatar
nonoise
4,382 posts
 
Hey Mike,
If you say the Jay's Audio CDT-2 Mk II sounds no better than your music server, that's quite the compliment. Conversely, can it be said that your music server sounds no better than the transport? If so, for those of us who stubbornly insist on spinning those shiny silver discs, this sound like it'd be the way to go. 

All the best,
Nonoise
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
4,382 posts
 
I saw that mini preview as well and am intrigued.
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
4,382 posts
 
I haven't but wish I could. Space considerations preclude me from doing so. And this review doesn't help much either with my dilemma;
http://6moons.com/audioreviews2/jaysaudio/1.html

All the best,
Nonoise
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
4,382 posts
 
Srajan states in the review that the photo of the rubidium clock is of the models Jays has and not that it's the CD2. He just wanted to show the differences in the models. He even mentions the CDP-3 with the onboard Soekris R2R converter. 

The purpose of his review was to compare a CDT to his reference iMac setup, both fed to the same DAC with similar cabling, and the Jay's Audio CD2 acquitted itself in flying colors compared to a PC set up.

He said that the CDT was like having zero NFB whilst the iMac seemed to have about 10db NFB, making it drier and tighter. The CDT was more elastic, fluid and airy, and that was what he was trying to suss out.

More press would be nice but the current craze is for PC and I don't see many review mags and sites running to try this one out. Their loss, and ours and others who don't/won't know better.

All the best,
Nonoise
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
4,382 posts
 
@wig ,
 I'm jealous, to say the least. 👍

All the best,
Nonoise
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
4,382 posts
 
@aolmrd1241 ,
Srajan has that gift of gab, but he knows his stuff. There's a lot of word play going on with his style of writing and yes, sometimes my eyes cross but then it all comes together in the end. 👍

He's one of the few reviewers out there that has plenty of gear to try and he'll do just about every combination he can with what he has to determine what will, or won't, work with a given piece of equipment. 

All the best,
Nonoise
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
4,382 posts
 
There's a new video over at OCD HiFi Guy on youtube and he tried out various I2s connections on the Jay's Audio CDT and at the end of the video, he tried and found that SPDIF with Chris Sommovigo's Starlight cable gave the best sound, even better than HDMI. It wasn't definitive, but he'll report back.

All the best,
Nonoise
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