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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
lordcloud
144 posts
 
@in_shore 

What are you thoughts on the Rockna vs the Terminator?

I considered the Terminator as my next dac, but now I'm thinking that maybe the Rockna will be the one. Longer to save the money and justify the price, but it seems like a very long term dac. 
garrard
48 posts
 
All I want for Xmas is my 2 front teeth...
No, actually the Home theater review of the CDT2 Mk2 would be better.
dsper
271 posts
 
Hi celander,

I noticed that you are using a Theta Digital DS ProBasic IIIa DAC.

Can you comment on the sound and how it compares to other DACS you have used?

Thanks for listening, 

Dsper
celander's avatar
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celander
1,036 posts
 
I’ve only used the Theta Digital DSPro Basic IIIA as a DAC. It’s potential is greatly affected by whatever transport feeds it. My original CAL Delta Transport (having a <50 psec jitter output) sounded great with it. My Sonic Frontiers Ultra Jitterbug reclocker (having a reclocked digital stream with <40 psec jitter) or an AE Synchro Mesh OTL reclocker (having presumably 8psec jitter) didn’t really improve the SQ from the Theta DAC using the Delta transport.

I tried a NuPrime CDT-8 Pro transport (having 120 psec jitter output) with the Theta DAC. The resultant SQ from the DAC wasn’t better (might have been worse in imaging) than with the Delta transport.

I then obtained a Jay’s Audio CDT2 MK2 transport to mate with the Theta DAC.
💥BOOM!💥
The Jay’s Audio transport brought out the best SQ from the Theta DAC I’ve ever heard. As most here know, the Theta DAC is an R2R ladder design. I could easily live with the Theta forever.

I’m going to try out the Benchmark DAC3 DAC-Pre for reasons partly unrelated to the DAC section. I’ll sort out the SQ of their DAC section when I audition it. But based on the Theta DAC design and its resultant SQ when mated with a high resolution transport, I might be biased towards R2R ladder DACs.
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celander
1,036 posts
 
I had a Counterpoint DAC that I traded in for my then-new Theta DSPro Basic IIIa DAC. I believe it was also a R2R design. One nice feature about that Counterpoint design was that one could swap out DSP chips to change the flavor of the analog section. The Theta was a better unit, in terms of SQ. 
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