Anybody have any experience with this transport?

Vanguard CDM12 Pro

Interesting, wonder how it sounds.

This looks exactly like a DIY transport kit sold by a china company.

The parts used, enclosure, remote are all the same.

According to Pacific Valve the only parts they keep from the DIY kit are the enclosure and the remote everything else is different. I got no reason to doubt them, Pacific Valve is pretty well respected nowadays.

I have one. It's pretty decent for what it is. Yep the CDM12 Pro base unit is a kit from HIFIDIY.net....and it is spec'd for Pacific Valve using a 1ppm clock rather than the standard 3 ppm TXCO clock among other parts changes.

It's picky about CDR quality meaning only EAC burned CDRs on good quality media will play properly. That kinda bugged me a little but the SQ is better than my computer by a pretty good margin. Stage depth, instrument texture and body, 3D projection and dynamics are a little better than my Computer transport using a Auzen Prelude (COAX out to a Compass DAC/Amp ---> C-2C headphone amp).

I modified my CDM12 Pro by removing the XLR AES balanced out and put a Canare BNC jack in it's place taking a direct feed (paralleling the connection) off the COAX digital outputs for use with the BNC digital input on the Audio-gd Reference 1 DAC.

I also have an Audio-gd CD7 transport on the way and should be able to give the Vanguard a good comparison with the CD7.

Here's a pic of the Vanguards guts in stock form..






The CDM12 Pro is better across the board in terms of SQ than my heavily modified HK HD720 (which has a Tentlabs TXO2 clock + Welborne Labs PSREG PSU + tranny, rebuilt main PSU and heavily modified analog discrete output stage).

If you use a lot of CDR's then I'd make sure it can play them flawlessly from beginning to end before buying. Other than that caveat (that may have been fixed by now) it's a decent performer. Well above the average player I'd say.

Peete.

Cheers for the inform, looking forward to your comparison!

Thanks for the reply. I would love to hear how it compares to the CD7.

Is there any new news on the Vanguard CDM 12 transport? Comparisons? new owners? I'm in the market for a transport and this looks like it could be promising.

I just bit-the-bullet and ordered the Vanguard CDM 12 transport. I'll post again after I've played with if for a week or so.

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The CD7 is quite a bit better in all facets that matter. I am still amazed by the difference between the two transports. The CDM12 Pro is good but the CD7 just outclasses it completely. I half expected that result since it's the companion piece to the REF 1 DAC so the comparison isn't exactly fair but that's the way the cookie crumbled in this case.

Peete.

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I visited the Audio-GD website to see the CD7 , but it's not shown. What's the cost? Is shipping expensive?

Apparently A-gd only produces 100 units per year and once those are all sold that's it. Not to fear though a newer version is in the works according to Kingwa. Email him and ask about it.

I paid a little under 1K including shipping for mine.

Peete.

I thought that I'd give a update on this.

I finally decided to buy this transport today lol Damn near close to a year later.
My plan is to eventually replace the stock clock with the superclock4 installed by Reference Audio Mods. I also plan on doing this with my Monarchy NM24 DAC. I'm thinking that matching low jitter clocks will result in synergy similar to that Peete spoke about with his Audio GD components.

I'll post updates when I get the transport and further updates as I have it upgraded.

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The CD7SE (and it's predecessor the CD7) already has a pretty darn good clock (with it's own PSU) installed already so you might want to try replacing/upgrading the Monarchy NM24's clock first. Might save yourself a small pile of cash by targeting the NM24 first.

I'm certainly looking forward to your impressions (PM me if you want)

Peete.

Thanks Peete. I was thinking along those lines as well. I haven't got confirmation back from Reference Audio about modding either unit yet anyway. I couldn't find any info on the net about the Monarchy's clock - I found a spec sheet but it didn't have the specific ppm info that I wanted. The Monarchy's clock is somewhere in between 2-5 ppm so I will definitely be upgrading it once I hear back from Reference Audio.