Differences between digital transports

[magiccarpetride]

Must admit that I'm mighty confused when it comes to differences between digital transports. Supposing that we have settled on a good DAC (such as Beresford Caiman, fer argument's sake), and we've also settled on the audio format (16 bit 44 KHz red book CD, either in native AIFF or lossless FLAC), we're now faced with the following choices regarding the digital transport:

- Logitech SB3
- Logitech SB Duet
- Logitech SB Touch
- Logitech Transporter
- Sonos whatever (sorry, not familiar with Sonos branding)
- Linn Majik
- Linn Akurate

Everything else being equal (i.e. the wireless streaming into the transport, the interconnects between the transport and the DAC, etc.), what would the perceptible differences between the above 7 transports be? Would these differences warrant the large discrepancies in the respective price tags?

Please note that I'm not talking about the high resolution streaming (24 bit 96 KHz and up), as there's way too few quality hi-rez music on the market today to be worthy of any serious consideration.

[Themis]

I don't know the Linn stuff as digital transports.

For the other, my guess is : Transporter>SBT>Sonos>Duet>SB3

The differences between Transporter and SBT are minimal and certainly don't justify the price difference, imho.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

the acurate has no digital output, whereas the majik gives you a choice of dac
supposedly the majik with a good dac can perform at the same level as the klimax (the one above the acurate.
as for streaming capability i have read reports on what the linn stuff does that goes way over my head, but its suposed to be pretty clever... there is definatly differences in how the streaming aspect of it works though, as when linn upgraded thier system to the current cara firmware there were def improvments in sound...

[magiccarpetride]

I don't know the Linn stuff as digital transports.

For the other, my guess is : Transporter>SBT>Sonos>Duet>SB3

The differences between Transporter and SBT are minimal and certainly don't justify the price difference, imho.

Thanks for ordering the players in terms of their capabilities, Dimitri. What I still don't understand is what factors determine that one player is a better digital transport than the other player. Is it the buffer size? Something else?

[Themis]

Thanks for ordering the players in terms of their capabilities, Dimitri. What I still don't understand is what factors determine that one player is a better digital transport than the other player. Is it the buffer size? Something else?
Noise and jitter. ;)

Still, these measures are not known (except for the Transporter, I think), but a quick side-by-side comparison will give you this order.

Now, I'm not by any means telling you that the differences in transport are important, nor that they are noticeable for you, your setup or the musical material : I used an SB3 for years without feeling any frustration compared to other transports. ;)

[magiccarpetride]

Noise and jitter. ;)

Good to know. Some sources indicate that noise can be eliminated by using the optical connection. True?

In case of jitter (for those of us using external DACs), isn't that the responsibility of the DAC? Shouldn't the DAC establish the synching up with the transport to eliminate jitter?

[Themis]

Good to know. Some sources indicate that noise can be eliminated by using the optical connection. True?

In case of jitter (for those of us using external DACs), isn't that the responsibility of the DAC? Shouldn't the DAC establish the synching up with the transport to eliminate jitter?
EM noise can be eliminated by using optical. If it's the transport's noise (from the power supply, for instance), you can only eliminate it at the source : the cable (or dac) will be of no help.

Jitter produced after the transport (from the SPDIF receiver, for instance) can be reduced by a reclocking at the dac. Not all dacs use reclocking. What I can tell you (without getting into boring details) is that by trying to eliminate some jitter, you may produce other types of distortion.
Jitter produced at the transport cannot be eliminated by the dac : it is part of the incoming signal. The SPDIF protocol does not allow to eliminate jitter errors that are part of the signal when it was created. A pity. ;)

[Vincent Kars]

I’m afraid I do think the comparison a bit strange.
If you say Sonos or SB I can see some reason in using an outboard DAC.
The line of reasoning is that at this price tag you can’t get a decent DAC so use the SPDIF out and connect it to a separate DAC to improve sound quality
As soon as I have to pay the price of a Transporter or a Linn I expect it to perform well without an external DAC.
To me, a more reasonable question is, will a SB (or any other media streamer with a typical consumer price tag) combined with a separate DAC outperform the Transporter or the Linn.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

I'd say there's a good chance

[Gazjam]

The SPDIF digital out on the new Squeezebox Touch is a helluva lot quieter digital noise wise than the SB3.
Its been measured and everything. ;)

Sound wise....its a BIG step up from the SB3.
Not heard Transporter, Linn etc so cant comment.

Other have though...

[fmzip]

Just wondering if this would be a useful upgrade for my Sonos with my Beresford TC-7520

http://www.cullencircuits.com/webapps/site/67005/78076/shopping/shopping-view.html?pid=299746

Thoughts, opinions? Pros/Cons with upconversion?

[dave2010]

Just wondering if this would be a useful upgrade for my Sonos with my Beresford TC-7520

http://www.cullencircuits.com/webapps/site/67005/78076/shopping/shopping-view.html?pid=299746

Thoughts, opinions? Pros/Cons with upconversion?My thought is that you'd probably do better for what looks like less money to upgrade your 7520 to a Caiman. Then if you need/want to do further upgrading you could think again about which way to go next.

[fmzip]

I already have modded mine to Caimain Specs....:)

[jbloggs]

I recently went from a SB3 to a Touch and there was certainly an improvement in sound quality (using digital out to DAC on both), unfortunately can't comment on any other of the devices listed...