Transport to Spin Red book CD's

ferrox

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Jun 16, 2016
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Jakarta, Indonesia
www.primes.asia
I have been using Auralic Aries for almost two years now, feeding the music files stored in a dedicated NAS to Lampizator GG Balanced. However, last week, I borrowed 47Labs Flatfish transport from a close friend just to test. We selected the same album and played it both.

Here is the result:

47Labs makes an impression of faster speed, rhythm and livelier..We tested several albums, the result is always the same..compared to 47Labs, Aries sounded a bit dull and not so real.

Thus, I will be looking for a good transport to pair with my GG. There are a few options:

1. Wadia 7
2. Forsell Air Reference
3. CEC TL1x
4. Metronome transport
5. Or the new Auralic Aries G2

Anyone has the experience with above transport so far? Please share.

The plus side of adding a good transport is, more friends will come for audition because in my circle, only one or two are using music streamer.
 

bonzo75

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You can try to upgrade your streamer. The esoteric 01, 02, and 03 transports are excellent, and I have heard them many times into the GG. The CEC is good too
 

ferrox

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Jun 16, 2016
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158
Jakarta, Indonesia
www.primes.asia
You can try to upgrade your streamer. The esoteric 01, 02, and 03 transports are excellent, and I have heard them many times into the GG. The CEC is good too

Actually I am eyeing on the Wadia 7 but the laser lens pickup is rare and hard to find. CEC is also another option. I have never heard about Esoteric so far. How was your impression?
 

bonzo75

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Actually I am eyeing on the Wadia 7 but the laser lens pickup is rare and hard to find. CEC is also another option. I have never heard about Esoteric so far. How was your impression?

I love their transport. I don't like their playback (internal dac at all, though it improves substantially with the external clock). Lukas will also tell you that the esoteric is possibly his favorite transport. I don't know the Wadia.

Personally am not going to use a disc transport because if I am going to get up, it will be to change vinyl
 

ferrox

Well-Known Member
Jun 16, 2016
262
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158
Jakarta, Indonesia
www.primes.asia
I love their transport. I don't like their playback (internal dac at all, though it improves substantially with the external clock). Lukas will also tell you that the esoteric is possibly his favorite transport. I don't know the Wadia.

Personally am not going to use a disc transport because if I am going to get up, it will be to change vinyl

LOL..I put all my rigs on the side except for the amp. So getting up is easy. I read Lukasz's comment on FB..compared to Wadia 7, other transports are like toys. I will have to find that link again.
 

bonzo75

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LOL..I put all my rigs on the side except for the amp. So getting up is easy. I read Lukasz's comment on FB..compared to Wadia 7, other transports are like toys. I will have to find that link again.

Oh really? Interesting.
 

microstrip

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May 30, 2010
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I have been using Auralic Aries for almost two years now, feeding the music files stored in a dedicated NAS to Lampizator GG Balanced. However, last week, I borrowed 47Labs Flatfish transport from a close friend just to test. We selected the same album and played it both.

Here is the result:

47Labs makes an impression of faster speed, rhythm and livelier..We tested several albums, the result is always the same..compared to 47Labs, Aries sounded a bit dull and not so real.

Thus, I will be looking for a good transport to pair with my GG. There are a few options:

1. Wadia 7
2. Forsell Air Reference
3. CEC TL1x
4. Metronome transport
5. Or the new Auralic Aries G2

Anyone has the experience with above transport so far? Please share.

The plus side of adding a good transport is, more friends will come for audition because in my circle, only one or two are using music streamer.

1. The Forsell Air Reference is very good transport, spacious, nice warm sounding - but perhaps a tube DAC needs more detail and slam. Do nor get the first versions - the mk3 was the one to own.

2. CEC TLX-1 - great treble, delicate and airy. Deep, articulate bass. Could sound lean in some DACs.

3. Metronome Kalista/Calypso - an exceptional transport. Unique scale and dynamics, makes digital flow. Very natural sounding.

Unfortunately I never listened to a GG, please take it as a general comment.
 

ferrox

Well-Known Member
Jun 16, 2016
262
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158
Jakarta, Indonesia
www.primes.asia
1. The Forsell Air Reference is very good transport, spacious, nice warm sounding - but perhaps a tube DAC needs more detail and slam. Do nor get the first versions - the mk3 was the one to own.

2. CEC TLX-1 - great treble, delicate and airy. Deep, articulate bass. Could sound lean in some DACs.

3. Metronome Kalista/Calypso - an exceptional transport. Unique scale and dynamics, makes digital flow. Very natural sounding.

Unfortunately I never listened to a GG, please take it as a general comment.

Thanks a lot..will do. :)
 

dcc

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I have had a CEC TL1X during more than 15 years. It is a great player (analog like) and built like a tank. However, I would go one level higher i.e. the CEC TL0X. This player is just in another league.
 

bonzo75

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1. The Forsell Air Reference is very good transport, spacious, nice warm sounding - but perhaps a tube DAC needs more detail and slam. Do nor get the first versions - the mk3 was the one to own.

2. CEC TLX-1 - great treble, delicate and airy. Deep, articulate bass. Could sound lean in some DACs.

3. Metronome Kalista/Calypso - an exceptional transport. Unique scale and dynamics, makes digital flow. Very natural sounding.

Unfortunately I never listened to a GG, please take it as a general comment.

GG has more details and slam than Esoteric, dCS, etc. when matched with the right tubes. With 300b it gets warm sounding and fluffy, for example. With 242 it is the opposite. Where it might lack is the bass on movie soundtracks - I only know this because my friend with Esoteric played some and said so, though overall he preferred the GG. It is not tubey in the Jadis sense. The closest parallel I could draw to the components you know of is the AR Ref 10, which despite being a tube, can have a lot of muscle and slam and drive (though may be some SS preamps will be more detailed). In fact it also has some similarities in the way it expands the soundstage, though the AR is fuzzier. And which is why I loved the Ref 10, combined with Lampi. They supplemented each other.

One reason I would not recommend the Metronome transport is because we heard its own streamer do as well if not better in Italy.
 

ddk

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May 18, 2013
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I've had all the transports you listed and many more, the CEC TL1x (IMO) is the most musical and natural sounding of the lot followed by the Forsell but the Forsell has some dependability issues which the CEC doesn't!

david

PS. The digital link is just as important as the transport and the DAC!

I have been using Auralic Aries for almost two years now, feeding the music files stored in a dedicated NAS to Lampizator GG Balanced. However, last week, I borrowed 47Labs Flatfish transport from a close friend just to test. We selected the same album and played it both.
Here is the result:

47Labs makes an impression of faster speed, rhythm and livelier..We tested several albums, the result is always the same..compared to 47Labs, Aries sounded a bit dull and not so real.

Thus, I will be looking for a good transport to pair with my GG. There are a few options:

1. Wadia 7
2. Forsell Air Reference
3. CEC TL1x
4. Metronome transport
5. Or the new Auralic Aries G2

Anyone has the experience with above transport so far? Please share.

The plus side of adding a good transport is, more friends will come for audition because in my circle, only one or two are using music streamer.
 

bonzo75

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The older CECs in the used market, they don't play SACDs nor output their PCM layer, right?
 

asiufy

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I'm partial to the MSB transports.

http://www.msbtechnology.com/transports/umtv-features/

The idea here is to use a simple CD-ROM mechanical transport, so in case of mechanical failure, it's cheap and easy to replace. The "secret sauce" is in the digital section, that will read ahead the data off the disc, buffer it, and re-clock it.

The beauty is that you don't need an MSB DAC to do that, as they work the same through all digital outputs. In that case, you can pop in a femtoclock in the transport, as most digital outputs will actually have the DAC slaved to the transport's clock.

Oh, and the Universal Media Transport is, as the name implies, truly universal, and will play SACD, DVD-A and Blue Ray discs, as well as good ol' Redbook CDs.

cheers,
alex
 

ddk

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May 18, 2013
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LOL..I put all my rigs on the side except for the amp. So getting up is easy. I read Lukasz's comment on FB..compared to Wadia 7, other transports are like toys. I will have to find that link again.

That's interesting because the Wadia is among the worst and most hifi transports I heard :)!

david
 

bonzo75

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jfrech

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I have not tried this with your dac combo. But a used Scarlatti DAC from dCS is a steal right now. The esoteric mechanism is one of the best and dCS knows what they are doing when it comes to transports. At a minimum, I'd add this to your list...Good luck
 

Al M.

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I recommend the Simaudio Moon 260 DT transport for Redbook CD (which is what ferrox asked for). Several reasons:

1. It's a current product, so no issues with irretrievable lasers, transport mechanisms, etc., unlike with some other recommendations on this thread, or with some of the candidates in the original list presented.
2. It is excellent. I have heard some of the best digital so far with it, on a dCS Rossini DAC fed from it. Experience is detailed here, with my friend Peter A.'s remarks on page 2 of the thread.
3. It costs relatively little, compared to other transports, about 2 grand. (I happen to have one.)

As for the desired characteristics of speed, rhythm and liveliness, as detailed in the original post: this transport will give you all of that to an outstanding degree.
 

mullard88

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Jun 5, 2010
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I owned and enjoyed a Forsell transport maybe 20 years ago. I used it with the Forsell dac, the Spectral dac and the Entec dac. My preamps were the Spectral DMC 20 series 1 and series 2. Power amps were a pair of Forsell Statements and speakers were the big Entec ribbons. All wiring were MIT.

The sound was spookily dimensional, spacious, startlingly dynamic, and balanced through the entire frequency range. However, every piece of music sounded very airy. I could always here the air that floated the cd. This was a very enjoyable effect but over time, I got tired of hearing all this air. There was also the occasional problem of the transport not being able to read the cd.

Personally, I love the flatfish. I still own two of them. There is a thread somewhere here where one of our members, muralman, blogs his experience using the flatfish.
 

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