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Transport - will it really make an improvement

Looking for honest advice. I am considering buying a better transport, and cant yet convince myself that it will really make an improvement in my system. At present, I am using a Pioneer elite DV-05 dvd player as a transport with an outboard, Assemblage, platnum dac and upsampler. I am overwhelmed with the improvements the dac made in my system, in lieu of using the inboard dac in the Pioneer Elite. However, I'm just not convinced, due to lack of digital knowledge, that a digital output from one source could be that much better than another. I seam to think that differences in quality of cd players, are mainly attributable to their internal dac's and not the transport or digital side. Of course, I maybe completely wrong!! On the other hand, I would hope to expect a difference if comparing my 500.00 dvd player, to say a 6k transport, but are not looking to spend any where near that much money. Please enlighten me with some education, and if you have any recommendations on a used transport for around 1k. Thanks, Steve

Oh, in case it matters, I have a pair of Innersound Eros MK1 electrostats with their new xover bass amp and ESL amp + good cables.
sfrounds
drrdiamond
671 posts
 
I have found that in most cases, the transport is MORE important than the Converter..

Richard
gregm
3,021 posts
 
The transport has to extract an ENORMOUS amount of information in a CORRECT manner, reading from a small, dotted, plastic disc spinning at formula1 speed. This info is then fed to the dac for sampling & conversion.
There is incomplete info on the disc in the first place (redbook s/ware); We usually lose info anyway either because it is read in a "confused" way & oversampling can't "correct" it -- or because it's not picked up in the first place...
So, yes: a transport is VERY useful, not only the actual tray & laser but also the implementation around it!
On the other hand, I cannot generalise saying that a used 1k transport will be better than your particular Pioneer; it SHOULD be, as it's designed exclusively to extract info from a redbook cd! Sony, Philips, and CEC supply transports (i.e. the laser reading and disc spinning part) for most manufacturers: maybe you could borrow an integrated cdp (many sony & philips around) and feed the "digital out" tap to yr dac! Good luck
fly_fish_nz
70 posts
 
I have not used the DV-5, but using a Proceed CDD transport ($900-1000 used) was a huge improvement over a pioneer DVD 525 in my system. Another I liked for somewhat less was the Theta Pearl.
darrell's avatar
darrell
70 posts
 
The transport IS very important and WILL make a difference!

I've tried many transports and the BEST sounding to me is the Philips 12 pro. It is used in many high end units and if suspended on a good rubber suspension as used in all the top loading units can sound superb. The main areas of improvement will be : better bass, smoother more open midrange, and highs that extended without any edge.

Many will insist that a newer DVD player used as a transport will equal a good redbook cd transport, don't believe it. The laser and servo systems in a redbook cd transport are optimised to recover the redbook cd spec data. Also, there are no high quality dvd transports that are as good as the Philips 12 pro and therfore ANYTHING that also plays/reads DVD is a compromise!!!!!!!!!!!!
jcaudio's avatar
jcaudio
237 posts
 
I agree that the transport is at least if not much more important than the DAC. If I have a customer wanting to spend $5000 as an example for a digital system I find in most cases the customer will think of $1000 on a transport and $4000 for the DAC. We have found much more significant improvements in spending maybe $3000 for the transport and $2000 for the DAC. As an example, we have gotten better results here using a $3000 transport with a $1800 DAC than with using a $1000 transport with even a $8000 DAC.
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