Read the following, I wonder what causes such weird observation..
***************************************************************** Re: [TheRealTacTHackers] Re: Northstar verses Transporter. Is that my cue? So anyway, my Transporter arrived a few weeks ago (ordered about 15 minutes after the link first appeared on the slimdevices page...) and I've been enjoying the hell out of it. Tried it briefly in a non-TacT system so I could hear its analog output, which is sweet. Body, detail, but not hard on the ears. Then I dragged it where it belongs and strapped it to the TacT-based system. Very very nice. Worlds better as a transport than an SB3, even one with a linear PS and the set of Bolder digital mods. Just a... sense of detail-with-delicacy, a lightness of foot, a lack of fatigue compared to the modded SB3 or a modded Sony DVD player used as a transport. Sounded really nice using an Audience AU24 S/PDIF cable on the coax output into the Ant'ny-modded 2.2X; didn't really have enough comparable cables with different terminations to do a full-on listen fest among them, but I was happy. Recently (and I'm not telling who I had to mug to get my hands on it) I've been able to listen to a North Star in the same system. It sounded very very good -- about the same as the Transporter, which ranks among the very best transports I've heard. I kept reporting this to Anthony, who always seemed a little disappointed that I wasn't more dramatically blown away by its sound. Finally, Anthony asked if I'd tried disconnecting the Transporter while listening to the North Star. I said, no, it'd never occurred to me -- the Transporter sounded so clean after the SB3 that it seemed pretty unlikely it could be hashing things up. But I tried pulling the coax from the Transporter just the same, mostly to humor Anthony. Holy crap. Now I hear what the fuss is about. I know it sounds crazy for things to keep getting better than what days ago was such an improvement over the previous incarnation, but... with the North Star as the sole source connected to the RCS, with upsampling on and using Anthony's trick AES/EBU cables, it's something. There's even less sense that the musicians' presence in the room is at all connected with the speakers. The air seems more like that of the performance space. The subtlest sounds of fingers on steel acoustic guitar strings sort of bloom and hang in the air. I dunno. Got to do more listening and fiddling and cable-swapping, when I have time. I'm not sure whether what the Transporter's presence at an RCS input does to the North Star's potential is entirely due to something intrinsic to the Transporter, or has something to do with other aspects of the topology of my hookups. Got to figure out why the North Star sounds as apparently-good as it does particularly when upsampling. Got to get over being slightly suspicious of anything which sounds that good (the dire influence of those Puritans?). But... right now, I can report that (today, in my system, with this phase of the moon): - The Transporter sounds very good. If you like the SB3, run don't walk to the Transporter store. - The North Star, if unmolested by the Transporter, sounds even better. Scary-good. - The Transporter over Toslink is still better than I recall an SB ever being (although I didn't and don't intend to drag an SB back again to confirm). In this configuration, the North Star still does the dance. - I want it all. I want to know what Anthony can figure out about the Transporter, if he can make it play better with others. -- 95bcwh ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 95bcwh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4358 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28541 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
