I read "Help me beat my CD Transport" today and I feel like I need to say something

[audioguy]

As far as I see from your great AV room your system is essentially tuned for AV. Looking at your list of electronics I would not expect anyone to notice significant differences between transports and servers.

It seems to me that the perspective of the OP (or mine, BTW) on sound reproduction is quite different. Different audio journeys, as you say.

Except that when I made this decision, I had the 4 piece dCS stack, a different server and a room (and speakers) specifically designed for 2 channel. The differences were very audible (in favor of the server at that time). I'm not suggesting that the very best transport can't NOW best the very best server. All I am saying is that even under those conditions, I would still select the server - and I did!!

 

[Windows X]

Roon has very good UX that many and I love. That's true. Good sound? Maybe 1.5 has passable for enjoyable level in highend systems. Linux is better? Well, maybe you haven't seen better one yet.

It's all about convenient > quality and I agree. Many chose to take this side and try to avoid confrontation with really good CD transports.

 

[Empirical Audio]

I have not had a CD spinner in my rack for 10 years. Even my earliest USB converters crushed CD's when playing .wav files from a Mac Mini using Amarra for playback (version is important). I modded CD transports for 10 years prior to that and had one of the most revered transports on the market. Computer playback was always better. I was the FIRST exhibitor at any trade-show using computer audio for playback.

These days, I have pretty much converted from USB to Ethernet. My Ethernet renderer, the Interchange crushes the best USB. 10psec of jitter. Here are the measurements:
https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=156409.0

Not that Ethernet is as easy as falling off a log. Ethernet in order to sound great needs:

1) AQVOX switch
2) Good Ethernet cables, like Wireworld Platinum, 0.5m and 2m cables
3) Ethernet isolator like EMO EN-70e

Any computer for playback will do, but the best SQ I have found is using this freeware:

1) Linn Kinsky
2) Minimserver
3) Bubble UPnP as proxy server (just a checkbox to do this)

Not that you cannot get great playback quality with USB, but it requires jumping through a lot more hoops and more expense. At a minimum, you will need this:
https://sotm-usa.com/collections/sotm-ultra/products/copy-of-tx-usbultra-regenerator-1

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

 

[Windows X]

If you can compare your project with CD transport from Esoteric or one that uses Esoteric drive like dCS Vivaldi and show us the results, I'll consider trying yours again. I tried few products back in past years and USB is still the best thing when done with proper implementation. But I won't say it can be better than CD transports with Esoteric drive yet.

https://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/heaven-sent/

Regards,
Keetakawee