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Today's Transport War: Significant Differences?

I have been reading much these days about computer/hard-drive based transports as being a whole order of magnitude superior to traditional CD transports. In my reading, the camp who believes hard-drive based transports can render major improvements has been most notably represented by Empirical Audio. The camp which suggests that traditional CD transport techonology (or atleast the best of its sort--VRDS-NEO) is still superior has been most notably represented by APL Hi-Fi.

Each of the camps mentioned above are genuine experts who have probably forgotten more about digital than many of us will ever understand. But my reading of each of their websites and comments they have made on various discussion threads (Audiogon, Audio Circle, and their own websites) suggests that they GENUINELY disagree about whether hard-drive based transportation of a digital signal really represents a categorical improvement in digital transport technology. And I am certain others on this site know a lot about this too.

I am NOT trying to set up a forum for a negative argument or an artificial either/or poll here. I want to understand the significant differences in the positions and better understand some of the technical reasons why there is such a significant difference of opinion on this. I am sincerely wondering what the crux of this difference is...the heart of the matter if you will.

I know experts in many fields and disciplines disagree with one another, and, I am not looking for resolution (well not philosophical resolution anyway) of these issues. I just want to better understand the arguments of whether hard-drive based digital transportation is a significant technical improvement over traditional CD transportation.

Respectfully,
pardales

Showing 2 responses by unclejeff

unclejeff
1,313 posts
 
Much of the above technical discussion is interesting and yes, I do accept that data stored on a computer's hard drive can be superior.

There are, however limitations. The first has to do with the format used to rip a CD. Everything is most dependant on the DAC used. I just purchased a Slimdevise TRANSPORTER which has a really high-end DAC and now my music on my computer as well as streaming audio is as good as my stand-alone CDs. Getting to this point took a while.

I had never been happy with my Apple G5's ability to play back my music. I have an Audio Aero Capitole CD player and I have a pair of bridged McIntosh 2102 amps and my speakers are Kef Referance 205s. Music from my computer, even using Apple lossless or WAV simply never equaled what I got from my primary system. I ordered a TRANSPORTER, but since they were back-ordered they gave me a squeezebox for free and this was an improvement. Then, the Transporter arrived and it sounds great. It has several digital outputs, including a balanced AES/EBU which makes it the first unit i have owned that actually outputs this signal. It also outputs toslink, coax and SP-dif. I have tried all three as my Audio Aero will accept any of these and the SP-dif sounds the best. Even streaming audio sounds good.

So, yes pure data well stored is fine; don't ignore the system's retrieval ability as cold science is still cold.
unclejeff
1,313 posts
 
Good question. The Transporter's DAC kicks in before it releases the Info. The feed from my transporter sounds much better than from the squeezebox using the same S/P DIF digital cable.
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