Well i have borrowed one of these to try. Running it into my Vivaldi upsampler using a transparent reference aes cable.
Trying it on various upsampling rates up to the maximum 384khz.
Only just switch it on but already cold out the box it is sounding very nice. Its a demo unit so run in, and just needs to warm up a bit.
But with just 2 albums down, and switching over to streaming from qobuz. The cd has it beat. Obviously streaming the same cd version and upsampling it to the same rate. But the cd just sounds more grown up, refinement and smooth comes to mind.
Also tried against my ripped music on my melco, but only tried it very briefly, that sounding much closer and will re visit that later.
But for now certainly enjoying cd’s.
The other thing is the dCS remote also controls some functions on the transport. The 1 to 9, and 0 work and forward does as well, but sometimes that can be strange and jump 2 tracks. But it’s nice to have a few extra buttons working.
But having tried a few different cd transports and player’s this little box is certainly the best one by some margin. If it gets better as it warms up then even better.
As for how it looks and feels, then yes it could certainly be better but it’s not as bad as some reviews i have read about it. Plus i could certainly live with it.
Will add more as i dig deeper into this, but first thoughts are so far good.
Interesting. As its you I will not spend time on something that I am sure you are aware of, the need for and lack of, a compatible wordclock input.
If you are happy nevertheless there is also now a wider choice of new CD transports to explore. I see that Michi (full player) and Metronome ( amongst others) introduced new machines in the past few weeks.
Hi pete.
Obviously it would be nice if if it worked with the dCS clock. But it doesn’t.
The dac will have to do.
But it does have a very good, new transport and system, that is new design etc.
Apparently it’s a giant killer as far as cd’s go at the moment.
All i can say right now is its the best sounding transport i have run.
It’s quite cheap as well really.
I would say even already it’s worth trying if you have a few cd’s still.
New here and have just got a Lina and already have the project transport. What is the detriment of running it into a dcs Dac without it having a clock input?
In a multi box digital audio system the signal processing needs to be synchronised. without this it is possible for glitches to occur .
Its nice to see you here for the first time so please visit regularly as there can be much of interest, even if it is not your immediate concern, you may find it of use later.
Well, literally not me as I have Rossini Transport. Do you use one of the Melco switches with the Melco music library when making the comparison with CD?
It might not be for you as you have the rossini.
But just because it doesn’t tie up clock signals, i wouldn’t rule it out.
As like i said the transport and operating system in this is totally new design.
Unlike anything before it.
It will only do red book, but you will find the same transport and operating system in a few other machines, but these cost around ÂŁ30k.
So like i said at less than ÂŁ2k new it could just be the bargain you are looking for.
I have the phoenixnet switch on my network and the melco runs through it as well.
It’s certainly better for it on my network as i tried to remove it last year after getting fibre into the house. I soon put it back in.
Would love to try a rossini or vivaldi transport, but for me the cost just isn’t worth it with my cd collection. But i guess this could change if i decide to keep this.
But as said i need to delve deeper into how it compares to my ripped cd’s.
I ripped these using the melco D100 and upgrade power supply.
But if this new cd transport is somehow doing a better job reading the disc, i guess my ripped cd’s aren’t going to as good, as the drive used to read the cd in the first place wouldn’t have been as good, and so the rip is the same?
As reading reports on this drive seems to point to it being extremely good at reading the info on the disc, not sure how that all works or if indeed it’s a thing. But whatever i have to agree with the reviews so far, as it is doing a nice job.
Why not use this new transport and make a red book only transport, as not everyone wants sacd.
That certainly would be nice to see and go lovely with the lina range.
If you do can i have the first one please
It is pretty good for the price, though I do not have anything to compare it too as a transport. One irritant is it can be picky with discs, sometimes needing a couple of tries seating the disc and puck before it recognises the disk. Might just be my unit though.
That could be a dirty disc ( often not apparent to the naked eye).Try cleaning the disc(s). Use a weak water/washifng up liquid mix, wipe from the disc centre outwards using a cotton pad, rinse with distilled water and blot ( not wipe) dry.
A lot more listening has gone on since getting this friday.
Had my mate over this afternoon to see what he thought of it all as well.
To start with, we both liked the cd or ripped version better most of the time over streaming from qobuz. The difference was mainly in the midrange and staging of the music. Some music was much closer but the streaming was always felt to be slightly behind, if still being very good.
Upsampling was all set at the same rate, max but not dsd.
We then tried ripped cd’s to melco, against playing the cd. This was extremely close and really nothing worthwhile to worry about.
Track after track, it was the same. No way could i tell the difference if i didn’t know what was actually playing.
Now the killer blow.
Move up to dsd x 2 and thinks changed. Obviously only qobuz and my ripped music will go to dsd x2, and now the ripped cd’s sounded slightly better, a bigger sound stage being the main difference.
With me being far more in tune to what dsd x 2 does, then i certainly could hear the difference more easily, but vic could also hear a difference but not as easily.
So the out come is really, i just dont see any reason to carry on with this. If i have got to slightly hinder my ripped music so it’s the same as cd’s then it’s pointless.
Ripped still has it, with qobuz a close second depending on file.
The other real disappointment is the pro- ject remote control, it really is poor. It has hardly any range and you have to just about point it directly at it straight on for it to work.
The box itself is ok, but would be nicer with a better top loading method than just a hinged lid.
The little pro-ject rs2 transport could be just much better with a bit more effort thrown at it.
Sound quality is probably as good as it can get for red book.
I guess the only other one to try at some point is a dCS transport.
Yes using a transparent reference aes cable.
The transport just outputs standard red book, so 16 bit 44.1
The vivaldi upsampler is upsampling but you can’t upsample to dsd
You most definitely can. You can upsample to any higher specific PCM sample rate (including DXD lock which always upsamples to the highest integer multiple of the sample rate of the input), DSD or DSDx2.
