My new DIY Hi-Fi transport is definitely better than my stock E5 used as a transport .... not even close. My clock modded Sacdmods player/ transports and the DIY Hi-Fi transport seem reasonably close but still not the same.

One thing to remember is that if you paint the walls of a room a different color people will be in a different mood in it and this will effect what they hear.

I'm tempted to think that much like hard disks digital audio is fairly error tolerant (could you imagine if the data came off the hard disk differently depending on what disk it was on).

Audiophile hard drives? you sir are a genius

But I fully agree about the walls part.

Well at I own 3 usb hard drives

I'm not saying that they don't sound different but that I don't see why they should sound different. They are taking digital data and delivering it, there are lots of devices that do this very well ranging from digital cable to cell phones and I don't see why it will take 2 grand to do this with CDs.

That's the million dollar question I'm trying to find out sir.

The data portion (i.e., the music) of the S/PDIF signal is digital. Most people forget about the clock (running at 2.8xxx MHz) which is riding on the S/PDIF signal; this is actually RF and is analog in the sense that it is the timing and not the levels that are of interest here. Very poor design (clock and data on same signal), but its what you're stuck with.

I'm not too suire about the technical details about the S/PDIF signal and clock, but doesn't a $2k CDP also suffer the same issues as a $200 one in this aspect simply because both uses exactly the same digital protocol? (and the issue is with the protocol).

My new DIY Hi-Fi transport is definitely better than my stock E5 used as a transport .... not even close. My clock modded Sacdmods player/ transports and the DIY Hi-Fi transport seem reasonably close but still not the same.

How was it better? You mean sound quality or CD reading tolerance, and how?

Our fine friend mister cool torpedo is being pedantic because he's in a mood to argue, apparently.

LOL not really. The issue is that I'm not being able to fully make myself understood.

IMO an electrically digital signal would be something that isn't a continuous waveform. Something like pulses, clicks, or bursts as in Morse transmission. Any other signal which has a voltage continuity changing against time, no matter it's just between two voltage values, no matter it's shape is a sine, square, sawtooth, but has that continuity, I'd consider it analogue. Under such view the wave of the SPDIF output is an analogue square wave with changing period, which by FFT analysis could be converted into a sinewave with a lot of high order harmonics.

But as I said before, it's only a matter of personal interpretation and I'm in no way trying to mean the information contents of the SPDIF output signal is analogue, it's digital information that needs decoding to be converted into true audible analogue.

I hope this leaves my point clearer. In any case you're perfectly entitled to disagree

My new DIY Hi-Fi transport is definitely better than my stock E5 used as a transport .... not even close. My clock modded Sacdmods player/ transports and the DIY Hi-Fi transport seem reasonably close but still not the same.

Your DIY Hi-Fi transport edged out everything I threw at it. The Lambda was pretty close though. The reason I didn't mention the DIY Hi-Fi as an option for peanutbutterjam was only due to the difficulty in obtaining one. It would most certainly be my first choice in transports below $1,500.00, and might embarrass a few over that price point.

BTW the remote is in transit to you Earl.

Your DIY Hi-Fi transport edged out everything I threw at it. The Lambda was pretty close though. The reason I didn't mention the DIY Hi-Fi as an option for peanutbutterjam was only due to the difficulty in obtaining one. It would most certainly be my first choice in transports below $1,500.00, and might embarrass a few over that price point.

BTW the remote is in transit to you Earl.

Good thanks .... you never know how much you miss a remote until you dont have one.

Your DIY Hi-Fi transport edged out everything I threw at it. The Lambda was pretty close though. The reason I didn't mention the DIY Hi-Fi as an option for peanutbutterjam was only due to the difficulty in obtaining one. It would most certainly be my first choice in transports below $1,500.00, and might embarrass a few over that price point.

BTW the remote is in transit to you Earl.

How do you get one of them anyways, used only? I remember seeing them on a webstore a while back, but I can't seem to find it anymore.

How do you get one of them anyways, used only? I remember seeing them on a webstore a while back, but I can't seem to find it anymore.

the page I can see is HIFIDIY CD Transport Kit-HIFIDIY but no mention of price/availability on it.

the page I can see is HIFIDIY CD Transport Kit-HIFIDIY but no mention of price/availability on it.

There are a couple of links near the bottom of the page. One is for kits and pricing. The other is for instructions.

thanks

digital information sent via an analog medium is what you're trying to say, i think.

Yep, that's what I said in my post starting this page, but looks like I didn't express it clearly enough.

i didn't read the first page.

Oh, it's the first post in this second page. Never mind

How do you get one of them anyways, used only? I remember seeing them on a webstore a while back, but I can't seem to find it anymore.

When Nate bought that kit it arrived with a torn box and parts leaking out. He had to try and figure out what was missing without a bill of parts.

He had quite a time building it due to less than perfect instruction translations IIRC. Hopefully they've worked out the kinks.

They were supposed to introduce a higher end transport, but I guess that got canceled. Too bad because the drawings were very cool.

Yeah, my build was less than fun. But it's a testiment to the ruggedness of that transport that it's been through 4 owners now (at least) and is still working problem free (as far as I know!). I often wish I'd kept it but the memory of screws falling out all over the place makes me not want to go through it again. And if I recall correctly the only other build I've heard of suffered a similar fate in shipping and had to jump through the same hoops that I did.

It really is too bad, because the quality is really outstanding at that price point.

I would have kept it, but my rig change really necessitated a front loader that I could put in my rack.

I would have kept it, but my rig change really necessitated a front loader that I could put in my rack.

Yup, me too.

"Error", is the short answer. Transports create square waves, yes, but to varying degrees of accuracy, both in height and width. Depending on the interpreting DAC, this can have minor differences in sound to catastrophic differences in sound (I've seen lock lost as a result of a poor transport).

Back from the dead....

Is this the updated version of the HIFIDIY kit you guys mention?

HIFIDIY CDM12 Transport Kit [highCDM12 truntable] - $420.00 : hifidiy.net

It looks just like the original, but I assume it's updated because of the new nomenclature.