CD transports - do they matter?

[StanleyB]

Yep, one of the games I can play with the CPLD in my dac is truncate the word length, I suspect the folks who crave for 24 bit reproduction might be a bit upset how 15 and 14 bit sounds,

Are you sure about the 12 bit? I know the early Phlips (Sony and Meridian) machines used 4 times oversampling with cunning noise shaping and 14 bit DACs

Unfortunately for me, I was the guy selected by the repair company I worked for in the 80's (remember Lasky's?) to go on the various training courses and come back to train up the other staff. Sticks in my head as a sore thumb. The 12 bit players I remember are the Hitachi and the Fisher, which had the CD eject mechanism that pushed the CD upwards.

The 1st noted 14 bit player was the 14 bit, 4X oversampling Marantz.