2nd hand Transport desired ...

No I don't want a rusty Escort, I have a dream, and it mainly consists of getting my system onto one rack. I use two side by side now because...
a. used to have Naim gear with umpteen powersupplies so I needed a lot of shelves
b. the Micromega two box player, like the LP spinner, is a top loader.

a. is solved with a DV pre power, two boxes where only 4 would do before but b. is still a sticking point. I don't want to go for the really large spacings of the rack the Micro needs (12"!) soooooo what front loading transport should I look at to hook up to the Micro DAC? Bearing in mind I tried my half decent DVD player and was not at all impressed ... oh one more thing it should be dirt cheap <£500 second hand - am I asking the impossible?

Cheers

Jason

 

jason,
a WM'd teac t1 seems to be a good option. central audio have one for 350 ukp -> http://www.centralaudio.co.uk/ <- down near the bottom of the page but i don;t know how up to date that is and i think max have one too but i can;t be arsed checking.
you could go for a naim cdp with a digital out mod - again talk to wm but your price range limits you to a cd3 or possibly a 3.5.
pioneer upside down discy stable platter players also have a good rep as transports.

cheers


julian

 

The Teac VRDS T-1 is good, front loading, but out of the box its only colourful meaty sounding, not very exciting and certianly doesn't have a flat earth leaning like the Micromega. Modding it helps, but you need to start with something with the right leanings to start with really, so for you it's probably a non-starter.

The Stages make quite good transports, and are sonically in the right ball-park. Apart from reviewing, are you good at fixing stuff yourself though?

The only things I can think of, if you can track them down are:

The Audio Alchemy transport that they made for the DDE Dacs, can't remember the name. This was cracking I thought at the time, but I hadn't heard anywhere near as much stuff as I have now....

DPA tranasport, a-la the one Robbo used. This was definately good and nicely flat enough.

Service and repair though are likely to be an issue with all of them now though, although Perpetual technologies may support the AA if you ask them very nicely perhaps?

Cheers

 

Thanks for the ideas so far. I work as a research scientist for a major comsumer electronics company and so pretty handy with electronics.

I really wanted to avoid modding too much and hoped that an off the shelf box might be able to equal (ideally better) the micromega. Interesting that idea that a more flat earth transport is needed. Problem is that most flat earth CD spinners are one box solutions.

I guess the other options is to start from scratch but I doubt I'll better the Micro. for this much money and if CD gets any worse in my system I frankly won't listen to it at all!

Could the Output of the DVD player be brought up to scratch as a transport? It is a pioneer from a few years back, not stable platter though, good for DVD's crap for CD.


Perhaps I should offer another question: How much do I need to spend to better the Micro transport (which does seem to be very good) with or without the DAC?

Cheers

Jason

 

Don't know if it would work for your DVD, but the best chance it's going to have is to to use something like the Perpetual Technologies P3 upampler.

It doesn't need to do any upsampling to make a significant improvement in all the areas to a standard SPDIF output. They are a bit scarce though in this country to demo, we have one here for instance, but we had to buy it from across the pond, and like most things that pass with 100 yds of WM, it's hardly in stock trim.......

It is remarkably good though, and the things it managed to do for the TAG DAC 20 for instance when it was standard, and still running on it's wall wart power supply, were absolutely staggering. Might be worth a shot, although you double your necessary cable quotient.

Other than that, good single box players, well I'm not a fan of the Denen Beat 400 cdp, but it's not bad really and may well be doing the things you're after well, and they do pop up within your budget.

Cheers

 

timpy, I think the upsampler is the P1A - the P3 is the DAC

Michael.

 

Thanks Mike, indeed you're right, I should have wandered down the corridor and read it off the balsted thing!

Cheers

 

Jason,

Don't fart arse about with these toys! Get a decent transport!

My Teac P30's up for sale. I'm sure we could come to some arrangement that would see you getting a bargain!


As for using a DVD player Horseplops for want of a better word! I feel you are a man of more esoteric tastes.

 

Jason,

You can borrow it if you want, see what you think. I,m not really fussed about selling it, but if you did want to keep it, I wouldn't want much for it.

Cheers, Robbo

 

Jason, I feel the teac although a cracking transport doesn't have that 'earthy quality' you like, with farting about with it (from a man with a wadia).
The dpa is worth a punt, that french thing Lawrie bangs on about vector?, they ok, we played with one a while back, US $650 uK £700 your trade contacts proberbly a lot less, it a beastie too, worth a punt. Wm

 

How about the Audio Notes??

Someone suggested I try one of em as a replacement for my Micromega Drive. Never heard one meself though. Not that many knocking about 2nd hand it appears so might not fit within your budget.

 

Depends what you want I guess.

My T-Drive is for sale at 250 and is very flat earth. Naimees would love it I think. Mind you Henry T isnt flat and he thought it rocked best of all options with a DAC64. It has AES aswell.

Im as round as they come (god I hate this hifi language), so like the nice fat sound stage of Robs DPA better.

Suppose you have to decide what side of the fence you want to stand on.

Chris

 

I really wonder whether transports can be "flat" or "round"

IMO that flat/round earth attributes of a 2 box digital front end are all down to the DAC.

Michael.

 

The T-Drive certainly does a have a nice "bouncy" presentation, which I liked very much on that day. I think for that price, and especially using an AES link into Jason's exisiting Micromega DAC (I assume it has one), that this would be a bargain.

I'd have to say from my experiences, that a transport can indeed appear to impart either a more "flat" or "round" set of prioities to the presentation, even with the same DAC. I bought my own DAC into a dealer dem once, and had to ask them to change the transport part way through the dem the mismatch/presentation was that distracting, even though I'd come in to dem speakers and not CD transports.

 

T-Drive

I've heard the T-Drive (& T-Dac) on a few occasions. The best of which was with Shahinian (Arc) speakers, so it could fit well with your system.

I might be interested in an MM transport or player myself.

Cheers,

Lee

 

Thanks for even more food for thought. Before buggering about with the DVD player as transport I had assumed that everything related to flat would be the domain of the DAC not the transport and the rounder stuff (lots of detail for example) would be transport dependant. But it seems I was more than a little misguided. I now think that honours have to be shared and a transport + DAC + the link between them have to be seen as a system, you have to try to match the three bits together to achieve the right sound.

I will be following this up so stay tuned! The main problem for me seems to be that the in the mainstream single box players are becoming the norm again and I really don't want to have to buy a whole new player just to save some rack space! The Micromega is worth more to me than I could sell it for imho.

Cheers

Jason

 

Jason, are you interested in a Meridian 602 transport? I have possible buyer for the 606 dac, so could afford to split and come in under your budget.