I've had long conversations with Ralph Dodson about whether a transport should make a difference or not with the DA-218...and the bottom line is that even with all the high-tech buffering and reclocking he does, the transport still does make a difference. Talking to other engineers in the industry, the consensus seems to be that jitter will always be a factor unless you use a master/slave word-clock architecture.
I've tried a ton of SPDIF sources with the DA-218, ranging from the infamous $50 Toshiba 3950 univeral player to the $14000 Weiss Jason transport. No question that they all sound different (and yes, the Weiss transport was without a doubt the best, although you won't catch me spending that kind of money on a transport!). Off the top of my head, here's what I've tried: Toshiba 3950 Pioneer 593A Panasonic DV56 Sony S7700 stock Sony S7700 (basic mod by Empirical Audio) Sony S7700 (turbo mod by Emperical Audio) Arcam FMJ-CD23 DIY Pro2M transport kit (stock and with mods) Weiss Jason transport 47 Labs Shigaraki transport SqueezeBox 2 (w/stock and Elpac power supply) Olive Opus Oracle CD1000 transport (my current reference) There have been others, but I can't remember exactly. Btw - I wouldn't discount the Bybee stuff. For 30+ years, Ralph was head of General Dynamics' "Black box" division, designing military systems (missle guidance, etc). Quantum purifiers were originally developed for military systems purposes, so Ralph has a long history with them. I don't believe he would have used them in his designs if they didn't have real effect... -- PhilNYC Sonic Spirits Inc. http://www.sonicspirits.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PhilNYC's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=837 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=26332 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
