Interest in New Transports

amirm · Mar 30, 2011

Hi guys.

Would like to have your feedback on market demand for high-end CD/SACD transports. Do you see a future for these products? Or do you think the trend is toward music servers and that is it.

If you think demand will continue, what are the price ranges of interest?

muralman1 · Mar 30, 2011

Amir you know what I am going to say. The 47 Lab Flatfish stamped the period on my system novel. Ok, I know, the Flatfish is sissy looking. It's like the builder unscrewed the transport's body box, and threw it away, leaving just the lid. What it did to my system is not only improve, yet again, clarity, but added a brand new element, one hard to describe. It is a trail of notes rather than a succession of notes. The music lives as music should, always the gentle lady, carrying a big stick.

RBFC · Mar 30, 2011

In conjunction with our other thread about the future of CD, I'd have to say that physical media will continue to decrease in availability, while download files will become more prevalent. I also believe that many audiophiles will discover the advantages of music playback without active "drives" and laser servos, etc. The market for high-end CD transports will be from those who have large CD collections and want to play them back with high fidelity. It's still questionable how much of the non-mainstream material will become available on download sites, so a transport could be a hedge against limited access to desired music. Of course, all one's CDs can be ripped to the storage drive of a server... so, it will be a "confidence" thing with computers and the future of audio. That's where I'm TRYING to go.

Lee

Bruce B · Mar 30, 2011

Yeah, I think the trend is having a DAC with a bonus included transport! Our Playback Designs MPS-5 can be used as a transport OR DAC. I think MSB has a cool "transport" as well.

garylkoh · Mar 31, 2011

I think that something like the Bryston BDP-1 - a USB "server" will be the trend. Music servers won't be popular until they are as easy to use as a CD player and as cheap. Audiophiles represent too small of a market to shift the norm, but it is certainly a leader. So, transports will go away. It already has with me - I no longer have a CD/SACD transport. I use the music server as a buffering CD player - buffer up to 3sec in memory and it is almost indistinguishable from playing off a hard-drive.

rblnr · Mar 31, 2011

I think transports are done.

Steve Williams · Mar 31, 2011

garylkoh said:
I think that something like the Bryston BDP-1 - a USB "server" will be the trend. Music servers won't be popular until they are as easy to use as a CD player and as cheap. Audiophiles represent too small of a market to shift the norm, but it is certainly a leader. So, transports will go away. It already has with me - I no longer have a CD/SACD transport. I use the music server as a buffering CD player - buffer up to 3sec in memory and it is almost indistinguishable from playing off a hard-drive.

Gary

what do you use to play SACD

Steve Williams · Mar 31, 2011

rblnr said:
I think transports are done.

I agree but if so does that bode the end for SACD

garylkoh · Mar 31, 2011

All my SACDs are gathering dust. I'm re-building some of that collection from high-rez downloads.

Mobiusman · Mar 31, 2011

I know that this may be inappropriate on a predominantly high-end audio-based forum, but I think that the biggest chance for the survival of transports is price point. There are many models around that show that our society is moving in a connected digital direction and foresaking many longstanding mediums. Look at the plight of newspapers, books and record/CD sales. In a high-paced world, convenience is king, even at the price of compromising some degree of quality and information. So the only way I see transports having any sustainable life is if they are universal, meaning they can process Blu-Ray, which opens up a whole other issue amongst purists because of the different sampling rates, AND, more important CHEAP, so that there is little inhibition to ownership on the price front. If they are cheap, then they will exist for a decade or so while legacy media collections are used. I believe that they will serve the same function as my turntable, periodic use, assuming that they do not go the route of turntables and cartridges with mega-prices.

BTW, one thing I heard over and over again at CES this year is that it is best to rip CD's from a freestanding, metal-cased drive rather than using the drive in the computer that is doing the ripping. Any thoughts on this front would be much appreciated.

Steve Williams · Mar 31, 2011

BTW, one thing I heard over and over again at CES this year is that it is best to rip CD's from a freestanding, metal-cased drive rather than using the drive in the computer that is doing the ripping. Any thoughts on this front would be much appreciated.

I would be interested as well if this is in fact correct

rblnr · Mar 31, 2011

Music servers won't be popular until they are as easy to use as a CD player and as cheap.

I think the Squeezebox is a great cheap server. $300/zone gets you a touch interface that anyone can use, and it's all controllable by an iDevice or Android. The box has a low jitter S/PDIF output, and can be hacked to output from its USB port so you can go the asynchronous route. Streams Pandora, internet radio, etc. Have yet to see/hear anything that sounds better as a streamer to a DAC. Does 24/96 digitally too, and am in the process of ripping the DVD-As I have from my Meridian days.

BTW, one thing I heard over and over again at CES this year is that it is best to rip CD's from a freestanding, metal-cased drive rather than using the drive in the computer that is doing the ripping. Any thoughts on this front would be much appreciated.

I'm always skeptical of stuff like this that doesn't make intuitive sense. And most of the time, when I hear an A/B demo of such things, I don't hear what the proponents seem to.

garylkoh · Mar 31, 2011

Mobiusman said:
BTW, one thing I heard over and over again at CES this year is that it is best to rip CD's from a freestanding, metal-cased drive rather than using the drive in the computer that is doing the ripping. Any thoughts on this front would be much appreciated.

That's what I used to say years ago. Then some smart kid in Germany wrote EAC and gave it away free - exactaudiocopy.de - and it mattered far, far less. Now, with dBPowerAmp which is even better than EAC, I rip on any old thing I can find. If it reports accurate with the AccurateRip database, it is bit perfect.

RBFC · Mar 31, 2011

SACD may live on as DSD downloads. A DSD file is about the same size as a 24/96 file, so space/bandwidth isn't an issue. Playback Designs is coming out with the MPD-3 that accepts DSD, and I'd imagine that others will follow suit soon.

Cookie Marenco at www.bluecoastrecords.com is offering DSD downloads now, in conjunction with Korg.

Who knows?

Lee

ack · Mar 31, 2011

I am in agreement with what others have said:

The CD/SACD transport is dead - the bridge between a transport and a DAC has now been optimized
CD/SACD players will continue to exist until the music server is as easy to use
Music servers are still too tweaky to operate for most people, even something like the Mach2Music:
1. If building your own, good luck, and you need a good soundcard and software - configuration hell
2. If your DAC doesn't have a USB input, you need a bridge
  1. Not all bridges were created equal; we are back to the old days of evaluating transports and DACs and the quality of the interface between them
3. You need a monitor or an iP*d
  1. You need to get an app for the iP*d
  2. You need to charge the iP*d
  3. If your iP*d is in use by others in the household, you can't do much
  4. Placing a monitor on our racks is a pain for some of us
4. You may need to set up wireless for your server to get artwork
Integrated servers like Sooloos solve some of these problems, but too expensive and too small in capacity

So #2 still rules

FrantzM · Mar 31, 2011

rblnr said:
I think transports are done.

+ 1

and I use both EAC and dbPoweramp ... So far NO differences between the two ... EAC still rocks IMO and it is free ... Now for all the esoterica that we need to use a special computer to rip the CD ... the less said about these the better ...

RBFC · Mar 31, 2011

XLD free ripping software uses AccurateRip confirmation.

Agreed to the comments about computer-based music servers being fairly complex to use. It's only the "computer guys" that think it's no big deal. I've struggled along into this, and it's just now getting better.

Lee

rblnr · Mar 31, 2011

Will repeat that I think Squeezebox and Sonos too make music server setup pretty easy. Most of the process is automated.

LenWhite · Mar 31, 2011

My only method of music playback for the past 6 years has been my Cary 306 CD/SACD player and I don't see that changing anytime soon. If I found something significantly better at a comparable price I would certainly be interested. As others have pointed out, building a high quality computer based music server is anything but easy, and at least so far there's not a plethora of "high quality" downloads.

I have trouble believing a business model that allows high quality music (especially high resolution equivalent to masters) to be purchased once and easily copied many thousands of times will produce a ubiquitous music selection. Even though I read many posts the past couple of years proclaiming the death of redbook and SACD quality discs, they're still being produced in sufficient quantity to interest me. I have no doubt that in terms of price and convenience low quality downloads will likely remain for the foreseeable future, but I'm certainly not interested in that level of quality.

amirm · Mar 31, 2011

Ben said:
Does anyone come into your shop looking for a SACD transport?

It is a circular question. I am trying to see if any of you would come to our shop looking for a transport

.

It costs us dollars to inventory showroom gear. Right now, we only have cheap DVD players as transports and the CD slot in our touchscreen PC. Question is if we should show the Mark Levinson No 512 SACD/CD player.

The reviews are good. And the sound I heard is also very good. The only reason I see value for it personally is SACD as mentioned. Even though I have a good sized library of them, I am doing without as Gary. This being a business, I don't want to impose my own views of future of disc playback and hence this thread. I am trying to find out if there is a class of people who at least in the next 12 months, would be buying a high-end transport instead of their current one being the last, and next being a server.

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