What is the benefit of a good transport?


I'm trying to understand the role of the transport - i.e., what does it need to do and what differentiates one from another? How old is too old when it comes to used transports? I know it reads the disc, but I don't really get how one is different than another. Thanks for any advice.
mainer8
It's really just zeroes and ones, right? Better transports provide more stable platforms and better read capability. A very knowledgable friend with an EE degree who competently builds his own tube gear was not a believer of this until I sold him my modified CEC 2000 transport which is the most analogue he's ever heard. He was shocked at the difference. Much smoother and detailed than anything he had owned, so it is real.
I don't know exactly why transports sound different, but they do! Alright, alright, it's about 0's and 1's but... I think it's about jitter, don't you think? So in theory the transport with the less jitter is the superior one, I suppose... Have you heard a good sounding jitter troubled transport? In that case, just forget my preassumptions, I'm not a digital guru.

Chris
Jitter is the biggie. In non technical terms, it is 0's and 1's, but if the timing of their arrival to the DAC is off or not even or smooth, etc, then the DAC is going to have to work extra hard to turn those messy numbers into music. And down goes the sound quality.