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People buying Transports again?

I have a friend who is looking to purchase some dCS equipment. He is set on getting the entire dCS stack. Not sure if it is the Vivaldi or Pagnini. Although he has converted his library to digital (Meridian Sooloos) he believes he gets the best sound via a Transport. Now I know this is very subjective on does it sound better and if so what is the price of it. Like him I have converted all of my music over to digital. I converted it mostly for convenience and access to my entire collection. I have downloaded some HiRez files but I have no desire to repurchase my music in HiRez format if it becomes available. To me converting from disc to digital files was like going from non-remote control preamps to preamps with remotes. I personally would not buy a non-remote controlled preamp but that is just me. Are people going back or staying with transports?
heavenlyaudio
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mapman
15,679 posts
 
LEts put it this way, I would not want to be in the CD transport business unless I was perhaps DCS or similar company whose business is built around proprietary SOTA digital technology that someone might still be willing to pay for.
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syntax
2,033 posts
 
There will be always a few audiophiles who want to spend much money and exactly for those are the Transports.
I never listened to a digital combo which wasn't beaten by a single box Player, expensive digital is burning money. More and more realize that.
photonman
96 posts
 
I work with computers all day and the last thing I want to do is worry about high availability and disaster recovery for my music library. Long live the CD player :)

I am confused with digital music. If you can get hi res formats, why do some people say redbook cd is still better?

Basically the digital players are small audio optimized computers selling for a lot more than a personal computer. Ethernet is all about the data packets and making sure they get to where they are destined. I would not spend more then 10 or 20 bucks on a shielded CAT6 cable for a digital rig.
knghifi
1,667 posts
 
I work with computers all day and the last thing I want to do is worry about high availability and disaster recovery for my music library. Long live the CD player :)
I had an external USB drive died but luckily it was backed up. Since you work with computers, you probably know there are auto backups. If manual, just select, copy and paste ... not too difficult.

Basically the digital players are small audio optimized computers selling for a lot more than a personal computer.
Agree! DAC is just a computer converting a file of 1's and 0's to an analog signal. The only requirement is getting the data in memory so the cpu can process it. If buffer is big enough (ideally the whole disc), how the data get in the buffer is not important IMO.

I am confused with digital music. If you can get hi res formats, why do some people say redbook cd is still better?
the keyword is EXECUTION! Tiger Woods with just a putter will kick my butt with the latest and best equipment.

Ethernet is all about the data packets and making sure they get to where they are destined. I would not spend more then 10 or 20 bucks on a shielded CAT6 cable for a digital rig.
Why does digital and analog cables sound different?
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jazzonthehudson
277 posts
 
>>Ethernet is all about the data packets and making sure they get to where they are destined.

Yes for TCP/IP (or Token Ring or whatever transport protocol) they work as lost packets gets indeed re-transmitted and data packets are re-assembled but for hi fi audio where noise is a big culprit, causing jitter on the DAC/preamp side, you dont want RFI induced garbage.

If you dont believe all this and I am not telling you to, let me ask you? Why does (a digital) USB cable affect the sound then?

Here again there seems to be a discussion starting that reminded me of discussions on fuses and, to a lesser extend, on cables. Why dont we all experiment more?

If you dont hear a difference, then there is no difference for you,
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