Looking for a good CD transport - Page 2

Buy a cheap DVD player with a digital out, and put most of your money into the DAC.

Get hold of a cheap second hand Oppo 83 unit.  I thought the same too when i came to cd transports, ie: cheap disc spinner will do, after all its doing is sending 0's,1's to the dac via digital coax spdif.... not necessarily so!!.

I did a comparison test on several dvd & cd players, Marantz 67SE, Pana BD30, 10yr old Sony dvd player, and th Oppo 83SE.

The best i heard was the digital out from my Oppo83SE.  The others coloured the sound, moreso with the Pana BD30 and the old Sony dvd player.  The Marantz had a nice tone to the sound, but it was grainy and organic sounding.  Oppo was clean, clear, had the least colouration that didnt swamp the subtle nuances of a track. 

I wasnt sure why this was the case, until I loooked up this review (last 3 graphs) that talked about jitter from digital outs from the Oppo. 

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/blu-ray-players/756-oppo-bdp-83se-special-edition-universal-blu-ray-player.html?start=1

Also, having an external reclocker helps improve on this..i'm using an Audio-GD Digital Interface A version with the A-GD external class A psu, which i route the digital signal from the Oppo to the DI then to my A-GD Dac3SE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lazarus Short 

Buy a cheap DVD player with a digital out, and put most of your money into the DAC.

+ 10000

if it's a DIGITAL transport the DAC is going to be the main factor in sound quality, don't waste money on a high-end CD player!

Quote:

Originally Posted by shogo33 

Get hold of a cheap second hand Oppo 83 unit.  I thought the same too when i came to cd transports, ie: cheap disc spinner will do, after all its doing is sending 0's,1's to the dac via digital coax spdif.... not necessarily so!!.I

Great recommendation on the Oppo.

Oppo makes awesome players that are reliable, play every format, and offer a variety of output options.

Don't even need to get the 83, any of the Oppo DVD players would make an excellent digital transport for CD's.

Don't march right into that DVD player as a transport line of thinking without auditioning some before buying.  DVD players as transports are hit or miss, mostly miss.  I have tried a ton of them.  An old out of production Sony (DVP-NS57P) was the best I heard in my system.  The Sony is remarkable as it nearly equaled a Stello CDT 200 I had on hand at the time and I still own the thing.  In the mean time I tried various brands and most failed in the bass department.  Thin bass or inarticulate bloated bass is the tried and true hallmark of high jitter imo and that is what I heard time and time again while using DVD players as transports (I hear this same SQ straight out of the coaxial out of my computer).  The two BluRay players I tried fared even worse.

Long story short, you may end up paying more while going through dvd players than you would have had you just bought a high quality low jitter transport in the first place.  Take it from someone who went through this earlier this year.  As good as my Sony is, it is significantly bested by my current transport.  You could buy a more expensive DVD player but I for one would think that would be defeating the purpose of going with a DVD player in the first place and you are still not guaranteed good SQ.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shogo33 

Get hold of a cheap second hand Oppo 83 unit.  I thought the same too when i came to cd transports, ie: cheap disc spinner will do, after all its doing is sending 0's,1's to the dac via digital coax spdif.... not necessarily so!!.

 

I did a comparison test on several dvd & cd players, Marantz 67SE, Pana BD30, 10yr old Sony dvd player, and th Oppo 83SE.

 

The best i heard was the digital out from my Oppo83SE.  The others coloured the sound, moreso with the Pana BD30 and the old Sony dvd player.  The Marantz had a nice tone to the sound, but it was grainy and organic sounding.  Oppo was clean, clear, had the least colouration that didnt swamp the subtle nuances of a track. 

 

I wasnt sure why this was the case, until I loooked up this review (last 3 graphs) that talked about jitter from digital outs from the Oppo. 

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/blu-ray-players/756-oppo-bdp-83se-special-edition-universal-blu-ray-player.html?start=1

 

Also, having an external reclocker helps improve on this..i'm using an Audio-GD Digital Interface A version with the A-GD external class A psu, which i route the digital signal from the Oppo to the DI then to my A-GD Dac3SE.

I agree wholeheartedly, this is almost exactly what I have experienced going the DVD player route.  For a brief time my setup was a Sony DVD player into the Genesis digital lens reclocker.  Grainy is the perfect term to describe the sound of most DVD players used as a transport, that and a lack of clean articulate bass.
 

Another problem with some DVD players (like the $10 thrift store special in my workshop) is that they can take quite a long time figuring out what kind of disk is in the player - CD, MP3, etc......

When I was thinking about getting a new CD player a few years ago, I got some advice to avoid buying used 'high end' players as they often have more hours on them than the average household player. People who are serious about music use their players a lot. Whether this is correct, I don't know.

I've read recommendations for everything from multi-k$ transports all the way down to old PlayStation transports and CDROM transports from computers. It's a fun hobby!

John

Quote:

Originally Posted by batpig 

Great recommendation on the Oppo.

 

Oppo makes awesome players that are reliable, play every format, and offer a variety of output options.

 

Don't even need to get the 83, any of the Oppo DVD players would make an excellent digital transport for CD's.

I've heard good reviews of the earlier models, but the one that i did test out was the bdp83se.   As with my findings and what others have said so far, dvd players arent great transports, but i was stumped by the Oppo 83SE.   If one would use the 83SE for this purpose then this would be a waste as the 83SE has a decent dac and analog output stage built in (which is why u would get an SE model over the stock).    However, that being said, i'm not a fan of the ESS 901x dac as it doenst sound 'right' in my current setup.

But to satisfy my curiousity, i decided to test it out as a transport.