How Good a CD Transport is Required to Sound Better than Streaming?

Esoteric-CD.jpg
There seems to be a fairly solid consensus (Lucasz Ficus, LL21, Al M, etc.) that CD playback or computer file playback, or perhaps both, sound better than streaming (assuming, of course, that all other variables, including the DAC, are held constant).

But I assume that one cannot assume that any device that can spin a CD necessarily will achieve better sound quality than will streaming.

So how good a CD transport does one need to achieve CD playback which sounds better than streaming? Where do the lines (rising sound quality of better transport and streaming sound quality) cross?
 
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The CDT3 has a way better power supply and isolation of everything. The drive as well as internal noise. Its a hell of a deal for disc playing if you have a lot of disc. I would love to try one. Too much other stuff to do with bigger gains. Room being the key one. And maybe subs.
from my perspective i know there are all sorts of $5k and up better transports to consider. the CDT3 is one of them. but for around $2k the TEAC get's me to a nice transport level, access to my CD's, my wife is ok with the spend, and then i'll see if i use it enough to justify taking the leap later to the Wadax Studio Transport with the Wadax proprietary Akasa optical interface.

it's hard to know where the balance point is for how good a transport one needs to have, and how good an interface one needs, to allow a better dac to make a big difference. the quality of the S/PDIF might matter a lot too.

how much of the dac does one hear? and how much of the transport?
 
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but i think we don't yet know how this (TEAC<->Wadax) match will go. i'm trying to solve a music media access problem on a budget (will be my least used source), don't have any illusions of this being an 'ultimate' solution, but hope maybe that the tool will exceed my expectations. i can help it along with resonance treatment, maybe some mass loading, quality power cord already on hand, a great A/C power grid, and the right rca s/pdif.

making no claims. the price of admission is marginal. not trying to prove CD's are better than streaming, just want to hear my music.

Fully understood the context and fun factor. You saw interest building back up on the industry side and pursued something that was looking as if it met some standards of quality you uphold.

Thank you for including the fact you are going in a bit blind on the outcome. There was some question of impromptu show demo w/Wadax.

you have previously established that you are a skeptic. and that uber digital expenditures offend you.

Believe you have assorted me with something in the past I cannot immediately recall. Finer points are often lost to the predominant reasons why everyone is skeptical on the internet.

If memory serves I was quite positive about Wadax producing a transport. Even prodded you on an opinion knowing cd playback was far down your list of priorities.

not sure where that is going.

It is going directly where stated.

Easily magnetized plastic and foil discs that to some degree have suffered degradation in the years since manufacturing. Almost always with a paper booklet locked directly on top of them. Without cheek I can assure you taking the wrapper off a new disc is no more assuring of a microscopically clean surface than grabbing one out of a fogged and cracked 30-40 year old case. ;)

The reader can ascertain their own sense of the topic I'm abandoning to avoid placing source material over transport goodness.
 
Fully understood the context and fun factor. You saw interest building back up on the industry side and pursued something that was looking as if it met some standards of quality you uphold.

Thank you for including the fact you are going in a bit blind on the outcome. There was some question of impromptu show demo w/Wadax.
ok. good enough.
Believe you have assorted me with something in the past I cannot immediately recall. Finer points are often lost to the predominant reasons why everyone is skeptical on the internet.

If memory serves I was quite positive about Wadax producing a transport. Even prodded you on an opinion knowing cd playback was far down your list of priorities.
sorry.....i guess i still seem to struggle to clearly understand your musings. no offense intended.
It is going directly where stated.

Easily magnetized plastic and foil discs that to some degree have suffered degradation in the years since manufacturing. Almost always with a paper booklet locked directly on top of them. Without cheek I can assure you taking the wrapper off a new disc is no more assuring of a microscopically clean surface than grabbing one out of a fogged and cracked 30-40 year old case. ;)

The reader can ascertain their own sense of the topic I'm abandoning to avoid placing source material over transport goodness.
will my CD collection suffer from degradation? maybe. my room has quality HVAC and the CD's were in excellent condition 7-8 years ago when i stopped spinning them. personally i have zero concerns about this issue. it would be a surprise if it was an issue. we will find out soon enough.
 
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will my CD collection suffer from degradation? maybe. my room has quality HVAC and the CD's were in excellent condition 7-8 years ago when i stopped spinning them. personally i have zero concerns about this issue. it would be a surprise if it was an issue. we will find out soon enough.

Aging gracefully is still aging.

At one point 100 year archival discs were marketed and seriously adopted.

sorry.....i guess i still seem to struggle to clearly understand your musings. no offense intended.

Were you to list a skepticism or offense rendered towards the wider topic of uber digital with direct relevance transports. It might be possible to avoid a musing and meandering response.

My hope is a response coming a few days and half a dozen responses later over course of a weekend didn't offend you.
 
Aging gracefully is still aging.

At one point 100 year archival discs were marketed and seriously adopted.
we will see whether the gap between my vinyl, my CD ripped files of 75% of those long term reference CD's, and the actual aged CD music performance is wider or narrower than i recall from my Playback Designs MPD-5 or Aqua LaDiva transports.....once i get my TEAC transport.
Were you to list a skepticism or offense rendered towards the wider topic of uber digital with direct relevance transports. It might be possible to avoid a musing and meandering response.

My hope is a response coming a few days and half a dozen responses later over course of a weekend didn't offend you.
not at all. don't sense any malice. just more work for me to process than i'm use to. my brain is lazy mostly.
 
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will my CD collection suffer from degradation? maybe. my room has quality HVAC and the CD's were in excellent condition 7-8 years ago when i stopped spinning them. personally i have zero concerns about this issue. it would be a surprise if it was an issue. we will find out soon enough.

I only spin CDs; , based upon my experience with them for the last 40 years I think you'll find the condition of yours just fine
 
Compact discs, or more generally optical storage devices, are orders of magnitude more reliable than hard drives of any type. I have closets full of broken hard drives. The larger the drive the more unreliable it is. I have been buying CDs for almost 40 years. The very first CD I bought, Johann Strauss Waltzes, still plays back perfectly. Don’t get me started on what hard drives were like in the 1980s! One reason I’ll never get rid of my physical media (digital or vinyl). It’s way way more reliable than streaming, leaving aside sonic considerations.
 
I’ll never get rid of my physical media (digital or vinyl). It’s way way more reliable than streaming, leaving aside sonic considerations.
???? Streaming is very reliable. A hard drive is what fails. I do admit. Lots of albums I put into favorites will disappear on Qobuz after some time.

I have only had a couple CD fail.
I have had quite a few DVD that I ripped fail after a few years. Non show any real physical damage. I do see a lot of cd that are not handled with great care fail. I have lost many to skips if the get any scratches. Many more lost cd to a scratch than hard drives quitting.
 
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I agree that streaming is becoming much more reliable. As a grizzled old veteran of the computer industry, I remember when the first Internet browser, Netscape, used to crash every few minutes. Today we can stream 4K (thanks to one of my academic colleagues who invented overlay networks in his Princeton PhD dissertation that made content delivery networks possible — he went on to become one of the founders of Akamai, which is the backbone of todays internet). My comment had to do more with streaming companies. Today’s Qobuz can disappear in a twinkling of the eye. None of us can predict if Roon or Qobuz will survive for the next 2-3 years. I sincerely hope they do. But I can’t bet my musical life on that. Hence my insurance policy is my physical media.
 
Concerning the CD transport - in my opinion - and I have been servicing CD transports for almost 20 years - it doesnt need to be expensive to be good. Thera are some expensive transports that are absolutely not worth it - like all Esoterics, and there are some expensive ones that are worth it (like MBL) and there are cheap gems - mostly from ROKSAN or CYRUS brands. The sweet spot and best of all are Audio-Note transports. Or the old CEC or the old AUDIOMECA brands. Some people swear by the Levinson 30.5
 
I agree with Lukasz having owned an expensive Esoteric transport. I hear the recent ones have a dreaded CD read error due to some reliability issues over the pandemic. My workhorse CD transport remains my trusty CEC TL0 two chassis belt driven CD transport. It will only play Redbook CDs. It looks like a turntable with a suspended sub chassis. No tray drawer. It’s a top loader. You pick up a big heavy puck, put the CD down and place it on top. Simple to change the belts as well. Through a great DAC like a Lampi, it sounds heavenly. Since I have many thousand of CDs collected over several decades, it was a worthwhile investment.
 
I agree with Lukasz having owned an expensive Esoteric transport. I hear the recent ones have a dreaded CD read error due to some reliability issues over the pandemic. My workhorse CD transport remains my trusty CEC TL0 two chassis belt driven CD transport. It will only play Redbook CDs. It looks like a turntable with a suspended sub chassis. No tray drawer. It’s a top loader. You pick up a big heavy puck, put the CD down and place it on top. Simple to change the belts as well. Through a great DAC like a Lampi, it sounds heavenly. Since I have many thousand of CDs collected over several decades, it was a worthwhile investment.
I have a 3+ year old Esoteric K-01XD player. It is my only source. One of the key reasons I bought it was to play classical SACDs that are a significant cut above CDs in sound quality. I have yet to experience a CD read error.
 
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i've decided to add a CD (only) transport to my system. a main reason is simply to access my 4000 CD's sitting on my shelves in my room. also i'm buying the occasional CD to have the music. but right now no place to play it. sure i can rip it to my hard drive, but decided just easier to add the transport. i have room and a great dac already. and the cost is minimal. no reason not to.

as far as actual performance compared to streaming, we shall see. i expect that the CD performance will be very good with Level 4 Wadax involved.

one driver of this decision is that my server has a dock that can accommodate -4- SATA 870 EVO 2.5" drives. when i bought my server the maximum drive size was 8 TB. so 4 x 8 = 32 TB capacity. however; in 2022 when i acquired my server it was told to me that 16 tb SATA drives would be soon introduced. 16 x 4 = 64 TB. but reality is that COVID supply side effect stagnated that happening. so instead of 64 TB i'm limited to 32 TB. which makes me view my long term plans differently. hence adding the CD player.

while i would have preferred a transport that can do SACD too, the cost would rise X10 to do that, to be able to use the proper SACD interface with my dac. so CD only for now.

i've ordered the Teac VRDS-701T. quality hardware at a reasonable price. getting the VRDS drive at this price was very attractive to me.

i need to acquire a quality rca S/PDIF cable, and maybe move my Wadax chassis around to keep the cable length short. i might be able to use my Esoteric GIX clock with it too. not sure how that works since i won't have the clock connected to the Wadax dac. not anything essential. just have to see.

it just does not make sense to not harness my super dac for CD's too.

in a year or so when the Wadax Studio series adds a dedicated transport which would do SACD's with the proper interface too, i might add that depending on the actual cost.

i'm still a committed streamer. access to high quality new music is what drives that. and access is also what is driving this decision too.
i did find a quality reasonably priced RCA S/PDIF cable for my transport; a used Shunyata Alpha v2 S/PDIF 1 meter. did not break the bank and if i do upgrade to a higher level transport later this should be a good entry package to move along to another disc spinning wanna-be.

both cable and transport should land next week.
 
Concerning the CD transport - in my opinion - and I have been servicing CD transports for almost 20 years - it doesnt need to be expensive to be good. Thera are some expensive transports that are absolutely not worth it - like all Esoterics, and there are some expensive ones that are worth it (like MBL) and there are cheap gems - mostly from ROKSAN or CYRUS brands. The sweet spot and best of all are Audio-Note transports. Or the old CEC or the old AUDIOMECA brands. Some people swear by the Levinson 30.5
i think it's unfortunate when we see one manufacturer throwing stones at other manufacturers. especially a broad generalization.

and yet when a customer posts a picture of the innards of a product they own, that same manufacturer (or his distributor) get's it removed. even gets the thread moved. without approval from the OP. a bit of baloney to me. wanting the freedom to throw darts, but can't take any themselves.

i guess it helps to know the right people.
 
i think it's unfortunate when we see one manufacturer throwing stones at other manufacturers. especially a broad generalization.

and yet when a customer posts a picture of the innards of a product they own, that same manufacturer (or his distributor) get's it removed. even gets the thread moved. without approval from the OP. a bit of baloney to me. wanting the freedom to throw darts, but can't take any themselves.

i guess it helps to know the right people.
To many people profiting from the Lampi gravy train, advertising included ! :rolleyes:
 
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i think it's unfortunate when we see one manufacturer throwing stones at other manufacturers. especially a broad generalization.

and yet when a customer posts a picture of the innards of a product they own, that same manufacturer (or his distributor) get's it removed. even gets the thread moved. without approval from the OP. a bit of baloney to me. wanting the freedom to throw darts, but can't take any themselves.

i guess it helps to know the right people.
Mike, Its not random swipes at manufacturers. This is Lukasz's blog from more than a decade ago when he pulled down and evaluated att these Transports here: http://lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/TRANSPORT/CD_transport_DIY.html
The reasons are all elaborated there.
 
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Mike, Its not random swipes at manufacturers. This is Lukasz's blog from moire than a decade ago when he pulled down and evaluated att these Transports here: http://lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/TRANSPORT/CD_transport_DIY.html
The reasons are all elaborated there.
not a relevant point to my point. he is free to say anything he wants to on his own blog, and then accept the personal responsibility. i like Lukasz, owned and like his products, he has been to my home. also not relevant.

as a manufacturer here there are expectations (not TOS issues) of not taking shots at other manufacturers. and then when he gets 'special' protections outside the TOS, he opens himself to being judged more harshly too. no free lunch.
 

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