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Silly Question...does a transport have a "sound" ?

I'm thinking of upgrading to a dedicated transport (like an Accustic Arts Drive I, AM Mephesto II.X or even a ML 37) from the Sony DVP-9000es I'm using now. I'm locked in on my dac (Kora Heremes II), which I love.

My question is, do transports from different manufacturers have significantly audible "sonic signitures" that I should consider when deciding what to mate to the Kora? (e.g., hifi-ish/fast/cold/analytic vs. analog-like/polite/bloomy/warm).

To go even further down this slippery slope, are there discerable differences between, say, a Teac VRDS 3.2 mechanism and a Phillips CDM Pro2 or a C.E.C. belt drive?

I've read a lot of posts here and on AA that've provided some clues, but was wondering if anyone with significant experience with multiple brands of transports could share some of their experiences.

In other words, is the transport "sound/signiture" something worth paying a lot of attention too, or should I just worry about mechanical things like stability, isolation, etc. Thanks.
garyk
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Absolutely, no question. I've modded a lot of transports and even stock, they vary significantly. It certainly has to do with the signal edge-rates and the output impedance accuracy, but even when these are "fixed", the sound is still different. I believe it has to do with the read lasers. Many of the older "CD-only" lasers seem to be much better sounding, such as the Sony DVP-S7700, which has dual-lasers. However the laser in the Pioneer DV-47A is also excellent.
drobbins
20 posts
 
Yes, transports have a "sound." They have a unique jitter signature that will affect your music. A jitter signature can have an impact on a particular frequency range. Besides the jitter signature (which is a BIG, IMPORTANT thing, try using the digital out from any $99 DVD player,) the transport should have no other way of influencing the "sound" of your system.
kjg
171 posts
 
Danlib, if you hear differences with different transports then one or all of them are bad transports. The bits on the CD are precise (most of the time), and the transport's job is to read and stream them accurately. If they do, all will sound the same. If not, then one or all are introducing random errors into the stream which cannot produce a predicatable audible change. The DAC decides what to do with the erroneous information and produces the sound. There are some common effects with streams that are specifically faster or slower than 44.1 khz, but really, why in the world would this be desirable when the music was encoded with precision at the specified frequency?

When you find several transports that sound the same on your DAC, its likely that they're good transports and are producing accurate streams. Hearing differences only indicates that problems exist. The same argument applies to cables, but that's another discussion.
metralla
945 posts
 
Klg,

All may not be as you imagine. As an example, consider the following article.

http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/eac/eac.html

Regards,
pabelson
344 posts
 
Assuming the mechanism is reading the data off the CD with reasonable accuracy (i.e., not enough errors to overwhelm the error-correction function), there is no physical mechanism by which transports could sound different. As Kjg says, if they do, one of them is broken.

As for "jitter signatures," there is no jitter in a transport. None. Jitter only occurs at a conversion point, which means it happens in the DAC. Any decently designed DAC (and in the high end, you can't assume anything) will reclock the incoming bit stream, so timing errors in the transport are irrelevant.
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