Reference Transports: An overall perspective

Henryhk,
>> With regard to the Wadia not being 32x better....of
>> course. In high end audio, cars, wine ...u name
>> it...the marginal utility one derives from spending
>> each marginal dollar tends to decline....but the key is
>> each consumer's assesment of the marginal utility is
>> different.
you are correct in saying that for each additional $ spent, the improvement is marginal & its value judged by the person spending the $.
However, that is not the point I was trying to make! My point was, that despite the vast diff in price, the cheaper solution gave a very, very good performance. This seemed to suggest that merely a transport was not the major part of the equation when it came to reproduced music from a digital source. BTW, I still love my Wadia, I'm going to keep it & enjoy music thru it.

>> ...my opwn exp: with Meitner. the chg from the old
>> Philips modified transport to CDSD provides not a
>> marginal but major difference in sound quality.
IMHO, what you gained when you changed from the modified Philips to the Meitner CDSD transport was NOT just the transport per se. The new CDSD transport is probably implemented much better than the modified Philips in that it's better mechanically/structurally, better power supply/supplies, better clamping, better electronics, better clock or even slaved to the DAC clock, etc. All these other things is what has given you better performance overall & NOT that the new CDSD drive reads the data off the disk w/ more accuracy.

Bombaywalla, the depth of my knowledge in the area of digital audio is not that great...I admit that. I am not a digital engineer. You are also correct that I didn't prepare for this discussion. However, it does appear that you have narrowed this discussion to just the reading of bits off the disk and have in some ways contradicted yourself. I am probably to blame for the former as I focused my response to Lktanx on read errors. My "ex-tempo" response was perhaps offbase or at least, too shallow?

Perhaps we have been talking past each other (maybe not?), but my initial response to Lktank was a reaction to this statement

In a modern properly designed player, transports should make NO difference to the sound.

If this were true (and I view the transport -correctly or incorrectly- as everything from reading the disk to just before the digital filters, including motors, power supplies, etc to accomplish this) then any modern transport should sound IDENTICAL to the next...not almost as good or practically as good, but IDENTICAL. The issue of cost/performance is moot...they must sound identical. A Sony, a Wadia, a Toshiba, an Esoteric, etc should all sound the identical if feeding the same outboard DAC, right?

Forgive my non-technical, empirical approach here, but my experience with the effect transports have on the sound in my system were with the ARC CDT-1, Theta Data Basic, and a Pioneer DVD player using the digital out...all using the same Kimber digital cable feeding a Theta GenVa. The differences were not subtle, even between the Theta Data Basic and ARC CDT-1. Both were noticeably better than the Pioneer player. I realize that there are variables still unaccounted for in this experiment; however, the ARC and Theta did not read to RAM and the Pioneer did.

I asked why would Esoteric spend so much money recently on developing and manufacturing the VRDS-Neo transport when they were going to read the data to RAM? On your first point, you said something along the lines that the clamping system they use eliminates/reduces CD wobble which reduces the "surges in electrical current drawn from the digital supply by the laser optics electronics". You went on to say that "this has the effect of dirtying the digital power supply & this crud pollutes everything it touches". This explanation sounds reasonable and reinforces my belief that the design of the transport is an important part in the design a good digital player. Would you agree? Would using a well-designed linear power supply for the laser optics accomplish the same thing? I don't know...I'm asking the experts.

I'm not so sure that Japanese culture has a great deal to do with Esoteric’s approach to their recent Universal players. I spent a year working for a Japanese manufacturer in Japan in the mid 90’s. I would say I’m fairly comfortable speaking of their culture. High-end Audio is a culture of it’s own whether in Europe, Japan, or the USA. Your statement that Japanese mfg's have been overengineering since the 70's doesn't hold water. The initial offering of all new technologies are usually over-engineered. RCA made some pretty substantial VHS players in the 70’s also. You think the iPod will continue to be housed in the metal chassis for much longer? I’m fairly certain that Esoteric did not over-engineer their recent transports by such a large degree for purely marketing purposes. This would be alot of expense and effort if it made no difference to the final sound. I've found Japanese engineers extremely practical in general and would fully expect them to focus their attention and investment on better digital filters, analog stages, and DACs if the transport made no difference to the sound. Certainly, they wouldn't tie the entire success or failure of a product to a multi-thousand $ "gimmick".

Finally, I have no beef with "computer-based audio" and I'm sure it sounds great. My main point is that there are differences in transports. Whether this is due to corrupted power supplies, read errors, or some other factor...there are differences. I am NOT saying that the differences in transports are massive or that they are more significant to the sound than other parts of the digital playback system. Your statement that

you are also blowing the importance of the transport -w-a-y- out of proportion, if I may say so.

is entirely misplaced. I said that I have heard meaningful differences in transports in my first post...that's the extent of my "blowing the importance of the transport -w-a-y- out of proportion".

Are we talking past each other or are we at least on the same page? Thank you for educating me on some of the technical details I may have misunderstood.

Germanboxers,

after your last post, we are probably on the same page because of your statement:

>> ...(and I view the transport -correctly or incorrectly-
>> as everything from reading the disk to just before the
>> digital filters, including motors, power supplies, etc
>> to accomplish this)

wish that you had made it amply clear to us of what you viewed as a transport.
I went back & skimmed thru your dialog w/ Lktanx & I re-noticed that all the discussion was based on reading data off the disk & making suitable corrections if error(s) occured. Naturally, I continued the discussion along those lines.
You are correct, all the other support systems in the transport do make a diff & your experience

>> ...but my experience with the effect transports have on
>> the sound in my system were with the ARC CDT-1, Theta
>> Data Basic, and a Pioneer DVD player using the digital
>> out...all using the same Kimber digital cable feeding a
>> Theta GenVa. The differences were not subtle, even
>> between the Theta Data Basic and ARC CDT-1.

confirms it.

>> Would using a well-designed linear power supply for the
>> laser optics accomplish the same thing?
I don't know if something called a "linear power supply" exists. When I read "linear", I think of harmonic & intermodulation distortions. These don't occur in the power supply electronics per se. However, non-linearities in the electronics driven by the power supplies can cause the power supply to leak into the signal path & bring w/ it noise, voltage/current spikes, ripple, etc. Power supplies can be made robust in that their voltage outputs do not sag easily, high current, fast response, low ripple/large charge reservoir, etc. The electronics can be designed to have high power supply rejection ratio or PSRR. The things VRDS-Neo has done to the drive itself + to the support circuitry goes a long way towards all this. The hope is that it will xlate to better sound. It'll be better than the other stuff on the market. Will it be better than their redbook VRDS used in the 861? It remains to be seen. Has anyone heard the VRDS-Neo & compared it to their redbook VRDS? Please share this info. Thanks!

>> Your statement that Japanese mfg's have been
>> overengineering since the 70's doesn't hold water.
what I meant to say was that I have not seen any other country engineer things ON A CONSISTENT basis as I have seen things from Japan over several decades. Things were substantially made in the USA too but when it sacrificed bottom-line profits, manuf goods were made cheaper immediately.
Contrary to this, what I have noticed in Japanese manuf, is that they 1st try to finds better ways to make the manuf goods while retaining their substantial feel. IMHO it is why Japanese automation & process, R&D supported by MITI are the world-class standard they are. Even the Americans admit this esp. in the auto industry.
With this in mind, I meant to say that a country like Japan would probably be the only one to want to tackle the CD transport issue. The volume of these VRDS-based CDPs is very small compared to the CD driver for mass market players. Thus, TEAC's payoff is small but it is certainly there. The proof also lies in the pudding - a CD transport like the VRDS is not available from any other country! True or not?
The one that comes close it Philip's CDM-Pro drive & I think that it is of the same calibre as Pioneer's Stable Platter transport. Correct?
The other major countries into audio like USA, UK, Italy, France, Australia/NZ, Scandanavia do not make VRDS type transports. Why?
Their collective markets are much bigger than Japan's so the financial pay-off from this high-level engineering is bound to fetch more money i.e. there is a higher incentive yet such a product does not exist!

When you say that TEAC did not create the VRDS as a marketing gimmick, I agree. I did not mean to say that anyway.

I think that we might not be talking past each other at this point. Hopefully we have cleared the air?

We may have gotten a bit side tracked from my original response. Here is a very simple example of why a transport makes no difference. We build the following hypothetical system. This system consist of 3 boxes interconnected. They are:

A. Transport only
B. RAM only
C. Digital filters/DAC/Output stage

These 3 boxes make up a complete CD player. The following lists a step by step process to listen to music.

1. Download entire song from Transport into RAM, error free of course.
2. Turn OFF Transport and disconnect it from RAM.
3. Discard Transport into an incinerator and burn it.
4. Play music from RAM thru box C which has the digital filters and DAC.

I finally came back to this post after starting it way back in March. I'm sure no one is still following it but if they are, here is my take (to quote Lktanx with an important modification):

"Here is a very simple example of why a transport makes [A] difference."
In real life any fool with a pair of ears can hear that some with error free output sound like crap and some with error free output sound like music.

Yes, pragmatism, empiricism, and experimentation are all that I have to offer.

One can continue to argue that transports SHOULDN'T make a difference but to argue that they don't make a difference is simply un-scientific:
1. You've hypothesized that transports shouldn't make a difference to the way CDs sound;
2. You run a controlled experiment where you test your hypothesis;
3. The experiment shows that there is an enormous difference in the way two transports sound (even though both provide 'error free' output to the DAC).
4. You must scrap your hypothesis and move on.