Why doesn’t dCS partner with CH Precision for transports?

[Carlos269]

Lee take comfort in knowing that this isn’t your worst thread; I still struggle to believe that a professional man with a degree of intelligence would propose that the Law of Diminishing Returns does not apply to High-End Audio. That thread is still your low water mark and intellectually might be the low water mark for the forum. I wonder if you received any private responses on that one from academics?

 

[Lee]

Lee take comfort in knowing that this isn’t your worst thread; I still struggle to believe that a professional man with a degree of intelligence would propose that the Law of Diminishing Returns does not apply to High-End Audio. That thread is still your low water mark and intellectually might be the low water mark for the forum. I wonder if you received any private responses on that one from academics?

If you think the Magico M9 is only slightly better than a $300K speaker then I must question your level of experience.

In fact, the M9 is significantly better. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

 

[mtemur]

That’s not correct. The platform, the control software, the sled were all changed. It’s a significant redo. As Alan himself says::

”A big part of the reason for the D1.5’s significance in 21st Century top-notch disc-spinning comes down to the transport. That high mass transport mechanism (MORSe to its friends) is a thing of beauty. There are two parts of a transport that are ludicrously expensive to fabricate for a company that isn’t making transports by the millions; the laser eye and the spindle. Technically, a company could even fabricate the spindle if it went a little crazy, but even in the highest of high-end there’s a degree of pragmatism that holds when facing vast tooling costs to make something that is already well-designed and engineered elsewhere. The laser eye… well, that’s simply outside of the wheelhouse of almost all companies in the audio world. In making its transport mech, CH Precision used the spindle-housing and laser eye from top-end Denon/Marantz CD/SACD players and engineered the rest. In other words, this is a massively engineered, 3kg transport mechanism that uses two parts from another company’s CD/SACD sled. The cynics in audio – of which there are many – will doubtless claim this means the D1.5 ‘is built around a Denon or a Marantz’ but that’s like saying a gin and tonic that’s in the same room as a bottle of vermouth is a martini!”

Did you understand out of that paragraph CH design and build their own servo control for laser and motor? Certainly not. In most cases some part or all of the servo control board is attached to laser assembly. On the other hand the above paragraph doesn't make clear what the rest means. Does it mean servo boards, decoding EFM signal or just sled, case of transport and similar mechanical parts?

BTW software you mention above most probably the software integrating transport to dac.

 

[Carlos269]

If you think the Magico M9 is only slightly better than a $300K speaker then I must question your level of experience.

In fact, the M9 is significantly better. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

I will have to listen to them but the others who Alon has paid for to go listen to and promote the M9 don’t appear to think that they are as revolutionary as you do. I’m just not getting the same excitement from them on the M9 as you apparently got. When is Jacob Heilbrunn taking delivery of his M9’s? I mean Jacob is a man of means, who appears to want the best of the best, and if the M9 are truly revolutionary and the best out there why are they not in his room? What I recommend to you is to listen to MUSIC on a high efficiency speaker system driven by DHT linestage and SET amplification and with a high rate DSD source streamed by HQPLAYER. Let me know if you think that the M9 based system you heard conveyed the musicality, emotion, and gestalt of the music in the same organic way as the stated system. I think that you will walk away from that listening feeling that you can achieve a greater overall musical connection and enjoyment with these simple and relative inexpensive systems than with the over designed and analytical systems that you promote.

 

[Lee]

I will have to listen to them but the others who Alon has paid for to go listen to and promote the M9 don’t appear to think that they are as revolutionary as you do. I’m just not getting the same excitement from them on the M9 as you apparently got. When is Jacob Heilbrunn taking delivery of his M9’s? I mean Jacob is a man of means, who appears to want the best of the best, and if the M9 are truly revolutionary and the best out there why are they not in his room? What I recommend to you is to listen to MUSIC on a high efficiency speaker system driven by DHT linestage and SET amplification and with a high rate DSD source streamed by HQPLAYER. Let me know if you think that the M9 based system you heard conveyed the musicality, emotion, and gestalt of the music in the same organic way as the stated system. I think that you will walk away from that listening feeling that you can achieve a greater overall musical connection and enjoyment with these simple and relative inexpensive systems than with the over designed and analytical systems that you promote.

I have yet to read a bad review on the M9s. Maybe I missed one? Here is what Marc Philips said:

”Hearing the massive, supremely engineered marvels that are the M9s – in their exceptional, dedicated, installation – has established a new benchmark for the performance of an electro-mechanical transduction system, allowing it to accomplish that grandest of deceptions. Their unmatched resolution, and the resultant transparency into the recorded event that it wrought, imbued them with an ability to all but vanish from the perceptual experience of listening to a recording, leaving only the more convincing sensation that I was in the presence of live music, and is unsurpassed in my experience.”

 

[Lee]

Here is what Robert Harley said:

”Once the listening commenced, it was immediately apparent that the M9 was different from any other speaker I’ve heard, including previous Magico models. The sound had the remarkable quality of appearing from nowhere, completely untethered to the speakers. This characteristic was certainly related to the M9’s completely silent background as well as its stunning spatial presentation, with wide staging and continuousness of imaging. But the M9’s disappearing act went beyond these usual tropes. The impression of hearing music rather than a hi-fi system was profound. The M9 is so transparent to the music that I had the odd sensation of the speakers not being the source of the sound. Opening my eyes at the end of a piece of music, I was sometimes momentarily startled to see this pair of giants standing in front of me.”

 

[gleeds]

I have a Heed top line transport and have been considering purchasing a Jays Audio CDT 3. At $5k its build quality, power supply and overall sophistication appear to be first class. I also like that it can be run through a separate master clock which will be a part of my future digital set-up. No doubt Esoterics VRDS transport is a benchmark for CD/SACD drives, however the Philips CDPRO2 appears to be excellent in its own right and my collection of SACDs small.

 

[Carlos269]

I have yet to read a bad review on the M9s. Maybe I missed one? Here is what Marc Philips said:

”Hearing the massive, supremely engineered marvels that are the M9s – in their exceptional, dedicated, installation – has established a new benchmark for the performance of an electro-mechanical transduction system, allowing it to accomplish that grandest of deceptions. Their unmatched resolution, and the resultant transparency into the recorded event that it wrought, imbued them with an ability to all but vanish from the perceptual experience of listening to a recording, leaving only the more convincing sensation that I was in the presence of live music, and is unsurpassed in my experience.”

Here is what Robert Harley said:

”Once the listening commenced, it was immediately apparent that the M9 was different from any other speaker I’ve heard, including previous Magico models. The sound had the remarkable quality of appearing from nowhere, completely untethered to the speakers. This characteristic was certainly related to the M9’s completely silent background as well as its stunning spatial presentation, with wide staging and continuousness of imaging. But the M9’s disappearing act went beyond these usual tropes. The impression of hearing music rather than a hi-fi system was profound. The M9 is so transparent to the music that I had the odd sensation of the speakers not being the source of the sound. Opening my eyes at the end of a piece of music, I was sometimes momentarily startled to see this pair of giants standing in front of me.”

I never mentioned the existence of a bad M9 review. I’m very familiar with precise clinical sound, but fortunately I’m also familiar with the intimate, airy, and full body ethereal sound of more simple systems, described in my earlier post. I have the luxury of having both kinds of systems, as well as others here at home, so it is very easy for me to compare and contrast the different type of systems and their sounds. If you like the type of sound that is featured on Jay’s Audio Lab YouTube channel then I can see how a speaker like the M9 designed for precision would appeal to you but if you prefer sound that is more dimensional and relaxed then there are certainly ones that provide more musicality. Without doing what I have done with my Remastering on my Wisdom Audio Adrenaline Rush based system, the lines are clearly drawn and it is one type of sound or the other. Have you heard a back horn loaded full-range field coil driver driven by DHT linestage and SET amplification with a high-rate DSD HQPLAYER feed? If you have, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

 

[mtemur]

No doubt Esoterics VRDS transport is a benchmark for CD/SACD drives, however the Philips CDPRO2 appears to be excellent in its own right

Philips pro2 is gold standard. Any transport from Philips is great especially CDM1.

 

[Daverich4]

I think this is true but the demand for transports is still there. CD and SACD playback has a big advantage over streaming: the user controls the selection of the mastering and hence the sound quality to some extent.

There’s another choice. I’ve lost track of the number of my CD’s that have been in a player once while they were being ripped. Bit perfect files without the error correction built into CD players. I think I get the advantages you mention without the cost. Plus the versatility of searching my collection, built in metadata, links to other things by the artist, and so on. I’ve ripped all of my SACDs so they’re part of my collection as well.

 

[Lagonda]

And ownership, physical contact and ritual of handling the media. For me , it is still much more comfortable to pick something in my CD collection than selecting music in the 70 millions recordings of Qobuz.

But surely CD handling was more ritualistic with the impressive Forsell CD toaster than with the dCS drawer transport.
Some will say that the frisson of knowing if the gas spring rod was operating properly or not also added emotion to the ceremony ...

I take great pleasure from watching the large acrylic lid go slowly down and the little window go dark as the "curtain" is drawn on the top loaded JVC pro mechanism used in my Krell KPS 25sc, my drive of choice these days !

 

[Lagonda]

Lee, I can play this game all day if that is what you want.

Only a dikhead would start a thread without checking any facts - or an alleged lame arse reviewer regurgitating manufacturers marketing blurb for cheap gear.

Is there a bonus involved every time dcs gets mentioned on these pages !

 

[Lagonda]

Lee take comfort in knowing that this isn’t your worst thread; I still struggle to believe that a professional man with a degree of intelligence would propose that the Law of Diminishing Returns does not apply to High-End Audio. That thread is still your low water mark and intellectually might be the low water mark for the forum. I wonder if you received any private responses on that one from academics?

I would nominate the thread where he was looking forward to promoting a 2 million dollar speakers, all for the improvement of mankind !

 

[Carlos269]

I would nominate the thread where he was looking forward to promoting a 2 million dollar speakers, all for the improvement of mankind !

Yes, you are correct, I do remember that post from Lee about how he was looking forward to the $2MM speaker for the betterment of mankind! The industry needs to collectively send Lee a check each month for putting these kind of nonsense out there to desensitize the consumers to the swindle.

 

[gleeds]

I take great pleasure from watching the large acrylic lid go slowly down and the little window go dark as the "curtain" is drawn on the top loaded JVC pro mechanism used in my Krell KPS 25sc, my drive of choice these days !

I loved the KPS 25 when I had it. In some ways I wish I still did!

 

[microstrip]

I loved the KPS 25 when I had it. In some ways I wish I still did!
View attachment 114943

The same for me - but I accept that is simply nostalgia and probably some pride of ownership. I preferred the sound of the next CD spinners that I owned by a significant margin.

 

[gleeds]

The same for me - but I accept that is simply nostalgia and probably some pride of ownership. I preferred the sound of the next CD spinners that I owned by a significant margin.

100% right, pure nostalgia. Modern day transports are far superior. But if we are missing the early days of digital I would add the cool Madrigal PDT-3 I also owned

 

[Lagonda]

100% right, pure nostalgia. Modern day transports are far superior. But if we are missing the early days of digital I would add the cool Madrigal PDT-3 I also owned

The preamp and dac sections are not very good, lacking transparency and tone, like most Krell products. The drive section used into a good dac is excellent even today !

 

[XV-1]

Is there a bonus involved every time dcs gets mentioned on these pages !

Cash for comment?

 

[XV-1]

Is there a bonus involved every time dcs gets mentioned on these pages !

Should reviewers have to state in their affiliation in their banner much like manufacturers & dealers are supposed to.

That way anyone could look up a few of their reviews to see if they are knowledgeable or just part of manufacturer advertorials or clueless.