Just curious to the advantages of expensive cd transport

[muljao]

What are the advantages of paying 5000 pounds for a CD transport over a well made 300 pounds one like say Cambridge Audios 300 pound award winner?

 

[nopiano]

This is a regular debate, most recently a few days ago here:-

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/what-makes-good-cd-player

 

[nopiano]

This is a regular debate, most recently a few days ago here:-

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/what-makes-good-cd-player

 

[Alberich]

What are the advantages of paying 5000 pounds for a CD transport over a well made 300 pounds one like say Cambridge Audios 300 pound award winner?

Wouldn't be an expert on this but have been doing a fair bit of investigation since acquiring my Theta transport.

By most accounts a lot of the performance improvements of the pricier transports can be attributed to their better power supplies and jitter management.
Since the transport generally contains the master clock most DACs will just faithfully convert the signal that the transport supplies it with, regardless of any timing errors present.
So the argument seems to be the better the transport the better it's signal regulatory performance, which in theory will optimise the DACs performance.

Some folk claim the effects of jitter are inaudible, some claim the contrary.
Just another one of those unresolvable audiophile topics we know and love

 

[muljao]

Thanks. Makes more sense now