Are Transports dead?

[Al M.]

Yeah, but most of them sold on Amazon for less than a $1.00 each. Big deal.

I'd like that. As it is, my new classical CD acquisitions are mostly still full-price. But I have to admit, recently getting the complete set of Bach Cantatas with Rilling on Haenssler for just over $ 1.00 per CD ($77 for 71 CDs) was not a bad deal...

 

[mep]

I'd like that. As it is, my new classical CD acquisitions are mostly still full-price. But I have to admit, recently getting the complete set of Bach Cantatas with Rilling on Haenssler for just over $ 1.00 per CD ($77 for 71 CDs) was not a bad deal...

I was only slightly kidding when I made that statement. I have lost count of the people who have talked about buying CDs for less than $1.00 on Amazon. I still think we are confusing pure transports with CD players used as transports and some people referring to CD players while using their built-in DAC as transports as well.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Yeah, but most of them sold on Amazon for less than a $1.00 each. Big deal.

Dead may be an exaggeration, but statistically speaking, fading very, very fast:


Media trends

Tim

 

[rbbert]

The way the poll is worded (poorly) it certainly sounds like choice #1 is what you take if you use any kind of disc player.

BTW, new $1 CD's (even $2 or $3) are quite rare at Amazon or anywhere else. Their specials on big classical boxes do often come in around $2/CD.

 

[rbbert]

Dead may be an exaggeration, but statistically speaking, fading very, very fast:


Media trends

Tim

Except that digital music sales are already falling...

There are so many ways to criticize the conclusions of that article I don't even know where to start.

 

[mep]

We have already talked about this 1000x time on this forum, but people expect to get their digital music for free and many/most don't give a damn if it's an MP-3. Many of those same people wouldn't know the difference between an MP-3, CD, SACD, and any of the hi-rez formats including DSD from their grandpa's wooden leg. As long as it's digital, it's perfect/good enough for them. Digital killed the music industry as we knew it. The challenge will be for digital to find a way to breathe life back into it.

 

[edorr]

I buy CDs all the time. I rip them once and never touch them again.

 

[mep]

I buy CDs all the time. I rip them once and never touch them again.

It's good that you only touch them once because handling CDs cause Compulsive Disorder Syndrome (CDs). It causes people to only play digital music even though they should know better.

 

[FrantzM]

I buy CDs all the time. I rip them once and never touch them again.

Same here!

 

[edorr]

It's good that you only touch them once because handling CDs cause Compulsive Disorder Syndrome (CDs). It causes people to only play digital music even though they should know better.

Sounds like you're one of those guys that got his library sorted by "33 rpm vinyl", "45 rpm vinyl", reel to to reel, dsd, 44/16 and so on. I have categories like, jazz - female vocal, acoustic rock, world music - middle eastern..... I have no category for "digital music", no idea what that would sound like.

 

[mep]

Sounds like you're one of those guys that got his library sorted by "33 rpm vinyl", "45 rpm vinyl", reel to to reel, dsd, 44/16 and so on. I have categories like, jazz - female vocal, acoustic rock, world music - middle eastern..... I have no category for "digital music", no idea what that would sound like.

You couldn't be further from the mark. My LPs are basically in alphabetical order. I have carved out one category under "J" which I use for jazz LPs. Everything else isn't sorted by genre or speed, it's sorted by alphabetical order.

 

[audioguy]

I buy CDs all the time. I rip them once and never touch them again.

Same here.

I do, however, have two sets of backups. I have a 2 terabyte hard drive connected to the server that backs up when I make updates and, in case my home gets destroyed, I have another copy of the backup at a friends house.

 

[edorr]

You couldn't be further from the mark. My LPs are basically in alphabetical order. I have carved out one category under "J" which I use for jazz LPs. Everything else isn't sorted by genre or speed, it's sorted by alphabetical order.

Of course, just taking the ****.

 

[rblnr]

Same here!

Me too (on buying CDs and ripping) but that's only because much of the music I buy is not avail for download in a lossless format.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Except that digital music sales are already falling...

There are so many ways to criticize the conclusions of that article I don't even know where to start.

No need. I'm sure you're right. The data is tragically flawed and the normal product life cycle, which one would expect to be shortened by the rapid advance ot technology, has been completely usurped by a few thousand audiophiles with visually impressive dedicated transports.

Tim

 

[rbbert]

No need. I'm sure you're right. The data is tragically flawed and the normal product life cycle, which one would expect to be shortened by the rapid advance ot technology, has been completely usurped by a few thousand audiophiles with visually impressive dedicated transports.

Tim

Actually I worded my comment poorly. Many of the writer's conclusions may well be correct; his means and methods to reach those conclusions are suspect to say the least.

 

[RogerD]

I'll take all those old crappy CD's for a buck or less that I can get my hands on. I'm just a touchy feely type guy,stuck to my youth when I enjoyed going through record or CD's bins and finding great performances. Discs are just another way to archive and although you could argue that they are not high res,I think you would be wrong. As far as the transport there are differences between them in sound quality.

 

[Al M.]

I'll take all those old crappy CD's for a buck or less that I can get my hands on. I'm just a touchy feely type guy,stuck to my youth when I enjoyed going through record or CD's bins and finding great performances. Discs are just another way to archive and although you could argue that they are not high res,I think you would be wrong.

Indeed. But you need a system where acoustic and electronic noise are properly reduced (professional room treatment, good power conditioning etc.) to hear the real resolution and 'analog sound' of CD. I am always amused when I see people fret over 24/192 vs. DSD vs. CD and then look at their lists of gear showing no hint of proper noise reduction.

 

[amirm]

That seems quite obvious by now.

But this is not [anecdotal]:

The above is the performance of my 15 year old Mark Levinson No360S DAC being drive from my everyday laptop's USB connection through the Berkeley Alpha USB Adapter.

This is superlative performance by every measure.

I looked through the recent reviews of transports on stereophile web site and here is the $13,000 ARC reference CD9 transport and DAC on the same jitter test as above:

And the $43,000 MSB Platinum Data CD IV transport & Diamond DAC IV & D/A converter combo:

Again, my test was with an obsolete DAC that even new was about $7K.

As I said, the ending of the story is already written. Just takes a while for all the players to read that chapter .

 

[Al M.]

Those are great measurements indeed. Show me a post where I had doubted that the jitter performance of a server through a great configuration like yours is superior to that of a transport.

I like the physical feel of CDs and don't see a reason to burn them to file; the great internal clock of my Berkeley DAC theoretically takes care of jitter according to its designers' claims, and practically as well, as tested. Jitter removal from the transport source is the only explanation why my Wadia 8 and the new transport sounded not just similar, but precisely identical on the Berkeley DAC as verified by comparing over several days.

I would like to see how on CD the jitter of my DAC with internal clock would measure when driven by a server vs. a transport.

This article by a designer from LessLoss Audio shows why most digital is backwards, and why it is so much better to have the clock in the DAC:

http://forum.audiophile.org/about-a...108/why-digital-sounds-bad-liudas-motekaitis/

***

Something else to consider, as I already pointed out earlier: RF noise from a server might be one candidate to look at when it comes to better perceived sound quality through a superlative transport vs. a server as reported by others, e.g. by Robert Harley in his review of the dCS Vivaldi combo (in fact, Shunyata now has a power conditioner, the Hydra DPC-6, designed to eliminate precisely that problem).