CD tranports

the key phrase is 'reducing jitter', the dac cannot eliminate jitter.

Without professing any technical expertise here, the combination of transport performance, especially 'clocking', and proprietal encoding of signal from transport to dac makes a great difference. Like a number of dacs, the Dax Decade does some re-clocking once it gets the signal but its output is surely still dependent to some large extent upon the input it gets, as time-based media.

My transport has a little switch at the back that allows me to toggle between S/PDIF, C-code (which is S/PDIF with the package headers removed, I think) and N-code (which is an encoding by AudioSynthesis). The results are dramatic improvement, as Nic has told me, and Dunkyboy, Alanbeeb and Shrink have had demonstrated to them.

Now it's only fair that I should tell you that I picked up my transport s/h for £200 and then had this pre-modded machine further enhanced for £40 when I upgraded to BG on the Dax Decade. By far the best value upgrade ever.

edit: corrected 'spelling' of S/PDIF, http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213474,00.html

 

My poor phraseology.

The graphs supplied demonstrate that the DAC1 essentially eliminates jitter, independent of the crappiness of the signal supplied to it.

Andrew

 

Andrew,
Twas the reason I first accquired one 16 or so months ago, sadly it doesn't live up to its rave reviews imho, The modified one is better but still suseptable to outside influences.
Quite a few forum memebers have had the Dac 1 and pass it on, system matching is also important with this unit as well, it IMHO really benfits from a pre-amp amps as well, rather than running direct. Good power to it makes a more than a smattering of difference imho
I found it to be highly illuminated in the upper frequenices, some what lacking in body and a touch dry too.
It does represent good value for money and has some nice features, and with the right system matching can work well Andrew.

 

The presumption then is that digital information/signal picked up from CD by transport and delivered by digital cable to dac can then be processed in such a way as to eliminate any errors of pick-up & delivery? Ot at least can process in such a way that is convincing to both graph (objectivist) and listener (subjectivist)? The key perhaps being the re-clocking so that there is regularity that you and I would see as thwack and rythmn, or some such language?

I'm reporting a discernible difference between two encodings delivered from transport to a dac. AudioSynthesis praise their dac, but only claim to 'eliminate jitter' when using Ncode from their Transcend, which seems to suggest that transport & digital delivery do matter.

as said already, I'm not a technical expert.

 

I found it good enough to convince me to sell my Naim CDS2.

I agree that it needs a preamp (that's a criticism of the preamp section rather than the conversion). I run it with the ATC CA2 at the moment but I have also just bought an EAR864 valve preamp with balanced inputs and outputs that arrives on Wednesday.

I think it's a very truthful bit of kit, with no unusual frequency emphases. I suspect many people just miss the usual mid-bass warmth that other DACs impart and/or they have tweeters that are too harsh to cope with the clean highs. I was listening to it last night playing a live multitrack recording I had made on a laptop with an RME soundcard. The recording was made straight off the mixing desk (I was mixing their gig at the time) using an ADAT for 8 channels out plus a further 8 analogue direct outs. The playback was straight from the laptop hard drive via the RME's ADAT output into the DAC1. It was absolutely truthful, as far as I could judge.

I can - of course - understand people enjoying other DACs more in the context of their systems, and even in the context of my system.

Andrew

 

Ditton, the Dac 1 has a jitter module inside claimed to make transports and cable irelevent. Great amount of webspace has been dedicated to this on the benchmark website.
The most complete method of TRYING to eliminate jitter is 'clock link' or 'synclock' between the transport clock & dac clocks. The word sync signal is extracted by the dac clock, and then is returned back to the transport. This 'slaves' the transport clock & dac clock, and is in essence, working as one.
Although you still have to process the signal either way (cables) Wadia uses a AT&T style glass optical array for signal transmission.
Though it involes an extra signal conversion process electrical signal to light at the transmission end, and vice versa at the other. While the signal is in the optical cable transmission mode .(thereorecticaly it shouldn't degrade or be affected).
I personaly still find I have to rebuild the power suppiles and sheild the digital output/reciever boards far better than O/E along with a few other implementations
I use AES up to the Dac and Glass optic back to the Transport.
You good just use a master/slave clock in one box and have a few compartments.
Mind you Teac have realsed there new ultra hi-en digital front end a 5 boxer, dual mono dacs (seperate psu boxes) and transport.
Their d70, not only uses a seperate digital info line 96khz each, but a word clock genny and a Ram buffer ala Dac 64 only 10 times more powerful.
http://www.teac.co.uk/esoteric_main.htm
Inho there are other ways of skinning a cat. Wm

Full on digial

 

to switch topic 'slightly', I recently acquired a s/h ADX made by AS, to add to the Dax Decade. Now the Decade acts as digital vol control so reducing need for pre-amp. With the ADX, the need for pre-amp is eliminated: it allows connection to the DAX of analogue sources, such a tuner and cassette deck ( and presumably record deck!), via high class A-> D.

This config seems to add fairy dust and breath new life into cassette play! Signal is picked up from tape, delivered into ADX and its processing, combined with re-processing by the DAX, does the aural biz!

Note that no irony, sarcasm or <otherword> is intended. It just seems to work - not perfectly, and certainly not with tapes that are worn, but with chrome and pristine ferric it does a good job.

 

Did you get to hear the system using this transport? Anyone like to comment on whether it's any good or not? Cheers.

 

no I didn't, sorry. I think that for transports you just have to take it on reputation as though I think them important, differences in the rest of the system would overwhelm my ability to tell whether it was good/great/excellent/thedogs...

btw, I've just got a Tivoli Audio Model One (s/h at £55) and its a good little number. Mono for Music, not Stereo for SoundStage (and all the rest of the Stuff-we-care-about) ... but good nevertheless.

 

I was partly thinking it would help me to know it's working properly, as usually I'd be reluctant to pay that much for a transport I hadn't had chance to demo in person. Not having looked into 'proper' transports before, I don't know it's reputation, but will do some web hunting.

They're great (I have one in my kitchen), but not much cop as CD transports .

 

OK, I'm due to see him next week to return/pay-for his interconnects (a pair of Siltech 4-56's, the Siltech HF-9 digital, and a 10" pair of Nordost Valhalla) and 3 RDC cones. He lent them to me for a week's home demo.

I would trust that the transport is working but would be happy to facilitate. I had a google on it, it seems to be a reference for some reviewers.

 

ditton - Cheers for the offer, but I've decided to give the Theta transport a miss (it may even already be sold, I haven't checked). Some of the reliability comments on audioreview.com were a little worrying, so for now I'll look elsewhere.

Martin

 

OK. I think I may have said that I was very happy with the yet older Meridian 602, and only sold it because I sniffed a modded AS transcend that went with the DaxDecade like the proverbial horse and carriage - ok maybe not strictly proverbial.

 

Hello, sorry for hijacking this thread, but which CD transport would you recommend along the lines of the Teac VRDS?

 

Yeah, I know old transports can be fine, my existing one is no spring chicken but works fine and I'll have no qualms selling that on to someone else. I think I'm going to see if I can find something a bit cheaper to give a shot first before jumping into that sort of expense. No hurry anyway.

No problem, although you're going to have to give a bit more information to get a useful response. TEAC have made quite a range of VRDS players varying in cost dramatically. What do you want to use your transport with and what sort of cost did you have in mind?

There's a couple of TEAC VRDS T1 transports on eBay at the minute I was vaguely looking at, but I have a feeling that in stock form these aren't that highly regarded?

Martin

 

Well, I was thinking of something near 400 or 500 Euros. I've recently bought an Audio Alchemy DAC, and I like the way it's working with my NAD 521. So I thought I'd be on the lookout for a CD transport and see how it would go. Maybe also in the future get a NOS DAC and try to make the source even better.

So, there's also a TEAC VRDS 9 player on eBay, but I'm not sure it has a coaxial output...

 

Not trying to barge in on this thread chaps but it may help others with a similar query. This is aimed specifically at Tony, seeking some advice.

I've had a plethora of DAC's through my hands during the past year and none really that have set my loins alight TBH. Best of the bunch was the M Audio Superdac with a beefed up PSU and a Sonic Frontiers Jitterbug taking care of the wayward bits, but some silly arse forgot to switch off the jitterbug while plugging/inplugging and it's died on me now

Anyway, I have recently acquired a PS Audio DAC and the sounds this thing makes is simply amazing. I have two Sony ES cd players and I don't think they have the right synergy to do the PS Audio DAC the justice it deserves, so I was looking around for a transport for sensible money.

Today by chance I saw Phil King selling some cables and a Wadia 3200 transport in the F/S section at sensible money, so I have bought it off him.

Now then Tony, it's an old bird around 10 years or more of age, but does it still cut the mustard and if not what tweaks can be done to get it to sing? What mechanism/transport does it have do you know?

Frank

 

Frank, I have to be honest and say I've never done a Wadia that old, Wadia 8 1993 is the oldest unit I have tinkered with.
I'm sorry I have no idea which transport it runs either possible a philips maybe a mail the Wadia themselves Frank.
I would think quite a few of the caps would want replacing at the very least, due purely to age issues, sorry I can't be any more help on this Frank. Wm

Something else for Andrew

"In the test results displayed on the Benchmark website, the Jitter amount used as a test signal is varied. However, the Jitter amount which comes from a slaved CD player is constant. What's not mentioned about the "UltraLock" asynchronous resampling is: the compromise of running two clocks in tandem is that there are unpleasant audible artifacts due to inevitable frequency discrepancies between the two clocks involved."

 

An opportunity of buying a Kenwood transport has come up. Does anyone know of the quality of these?

 

"let he who is without sin, cast the first Kenwood mixer joke"