About a month ago I decided to consolidate my two-channel system from a Transporter, Arcam FMJ pre-amp, and pair of Arcam FMJ mono-blocks to a much simpler system consisting of a Transporter and Bryston 3B SST amp. My speakers are PMC FB1+s, which are reputed to have good synergy with Bryston amps. Since I live in an NYC apartment with a wife and two toddlers, I don't drive the speakers hard at all (this was part of my justification for downsizing the system).
My main concern was convenience: my two-channel system is integrated with a plasma TV, game console, and cable box used by my family, and my wife is not fond of having to learn how to use a new, complicated system every few months. I set up the cable box and Xbox 360/PS3 to output two-channel PCM signals, so the Transporter controls and converts everything. Regarding sound quality, it's tough to compare the old system with the new one, because I didn't do a direct comparison, and on top of that the amps are voiced differently. I can't say for sure, but it seemed that at low volume levels the new rig was less than inspiring. This may be a consequence of using the Transporter's digital volume control well below 50%. Again, not sure about this. I didn't do much critical listening until the family went out of town and I got the chance to drop attenuation via the Transporter's internal jumpers. I set them so that I could max out the Transporter's volume without waking kids or drawing complaints from neighbors. Listening to the Transporter at the top of the volume range was a very satisfying experience. At this point I have no regrets about ditching the more expensive and complicated Arcam rig. All in all my "downgrade" from four boxes to two was a worst a lateral move and maybe even an improvement. However, there are some ergonomic issues that detract from the Transporter-as-digital-preamp experience. The main one is that switching between digital inputs usually requires that you power cycle the Transporter to get audio output. This is really frustrating for my wife, who is slightly overwhelmed at the process of switching inputs to begin with. Once a week she calls and I have to talk her through the process so she can watch TV. Not ideal. I know that has been a known bug for quite a while (and maybe even from day one with the Transporter). Why can't this be fixed? This leads to the second point. Right now switching inputs requires drilling down two levels (Digital inputs --> RCA Coax, Optical, etc). To improve the switching process, there should be a way to bring the inputs to the root level AND rename them AND delete the ones that are not being used. I'd really like to change the name of "RCA Coax" to "Cable box," and have this right on the root level. I don't like having to cycle through all of the inputs to get the one I want (my wife is truly bewildered by all of the choices.) I bugged this about six months ago but haven't seen any progress. An even better solution would be to put input buttons on the front panel of the Transporter and on the remote. I know this will require hardware alterations, but otherwise the Transports is ultimately compromised as a user-friendly pre-amp. Perhaps the Transporter 2.0 could have some assignable buttons that could be custom labeled and used to switch inputs. I remote with a little display would do the trick. I'm sure Logitech could help with this. ;-) While on the topic of upgrading the Transporter, I have another idea: Include a square or rectangular color screen on the next one to display album art. If the iPod Nano can display album art, so should the Transporter. I actually love browsing albums covers when I use iTunes or J River Media Center to play music via my laptop and USB DAC1. All my music (110 GB of lossless audio) is tagged to include album art. I can't be the only one. -- gregeas ------------------------------------------------------------------------ gregeas's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5877 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=41137 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
