CD Transport

Can anyone recommend a cheap CD transport for use in a small second living room?Second hand would be fine. Dont need fancy stuff, just reasonable quality.
This will be used when I cant get near my AV equipment because my daughter is watching Hannah Montana or something equally profound.

 

Get a Pioneer Stable Platter player. They are one of the best transports available (used in the likes of Wadia decks) and even if you dont have an outboard dac the sound produced by the onboard legato link electronics is far from being awful.

I have a PD-S703 and love it. These and the other models are available on eBay for well under a ton.

 

Thanks Smegger. I will probably partner it with a Beresford DAC as they seem to be popular and cheap.

 

I picked up a Teac VRDS-7 for about £120 on fleabay about 6 months ago (ish), nearly the same as the T1, seems pretty bloody good to me for the money.

 

meridian 200t.

 

Great transport-in fact the VRDS 7 is a T1 with a dac.

 

I think there is a slight difference in the transport ciruit and electronics, not even sure it is the exact same transport mech? but could be getting mixed up with my models, though not sure, but you may find the T1 acts as a better stand alone transport than the VRDS 7.

 

Hi try this,
http://www.audiocraftersguild.com/AandE/teac-doo.pdf

 

The Cambridge Audio Disc Magic is a pretty damn good transport for very little outlay. It has separate transformers for control circuitry and the digital side. There are about 9 separately regulated power lines in there for all the important components. Nice Sony mech IIRC. Will set you back about £60 probably

 

Had one of these for about 5 years. They are pretty good, but often get cranky on CD-R disks. Not all, I hasten to point out, but on some disks mine would make 'swooshing' noises every half second or so which was damn annoying. These noises would not be present if I played the disc on other machines. This and the backlight on the display burning out is what finally persuaded me to sell it. The Pioneer is better in every way, especially build quality.

I'd also put in a vote for any of the TEAC VRDS machines, although in my experience you'll be doing very well to get one for much less than £150. La Toilette seems to have had a bit of a bargain.

 

Thanks for all the advice. Would a Cyrus Discmaster be any good?

 

Someone I know who has a 1500 Euro CEC transport says, as far as his ears are concerned, a Sony DVP-NS76H is just as good for 120 Euro. He says it's something with it's precision drive 3 and he has read a test of the precision drive sony is using and it was reading cd's as good as any other high end transport!

I can't say myself if this is true but with a few other things he has been spot on.

Anyway good luck with your choice, all the suggestions so far have been very good.

jaspal.

 

Thankyou Cooky

 

If you get a Teac and intend to keep it for a good few years, get a VRDS-10 or later.

Replacement mechanisms and other spare parts for the T-1/VRDS-7 are rather thin on the ground, to say the least....if the mech goes you won't find one any more, and even if you could it'd probably cost more to put right than the things worth.

Did i mention they aren't the most reliable things anyway, owing to age and the complexity of the VRDS mech compared to most other players?

Over the past 3 years I've found this out to my (not inconsiderable ) cost...I've had a T-1 and two VRDS-7s which all came with or developed problems that rendered them quite simply fit for the bin. Great bits of kit when they work, don't get me wrong, but serviceability for the early ones these days is definitely questionable.

 

I'd second that .......several people I know have had similar issues....

you could do worse than the marantz 6000 series

 

I have never had a problem with my own Teac VRDS T1 transport mech, though I have lost the remote.

 

Touch wood(or is it now touch Wogan?)my T1 is running fine. Does anyone have any maintenance tips for these mechs? I'm getting paranoid now-thanks

 

I know someone, one of the most talented audio engineers I have ever met, who claims the Sony Playstation 3 is the best CD transport he has ever heard bar none.

 

I must say a few years ago I used a PS2 as a transport and was very suprised but the fan was too noisy. I havn't has a go on the PS3 yet. The children havn't hounded me enough!