Sounds to me like there's a few possibilities here: 1) Maybe the SB3 isn't delivering exactly the same bits that were on the disc. Could be that the file format isn't lossless, or there's a volume control somewhere in the system that's introducing rouding errors. Try, as a test, ripping a CD to WAV and comparing the two back to back.
2) Maybe the CD player isn't delivering exactly the same bits that were on the disc. Maybe it's upsampling, applying a digital filter or both - either way, even though conventional audiophile 'wisdom' is that any change to the data is bad, it's possible that the CD player is performing some processing that you actually like. If you have the equipment, try capturing the SPDIF signal from the CD player to a WAV file and playing that back through the SB3. 3) Maybe there's some degradation resulting from the SPDIF connection between SB3 and DAC. The ECD1 (is that your DAC?) spec sheet mentions nothing about jitter reduction or immunity, so it's a possibility that the dreaded, overused 'j' word is actually an issue in your system. The Transporter may, in that case, offer an improvement. IMHO reducing jitter at the transport is an inelegant solution, though if you're stuck with a DAC that's sensitive to it you may have no choice. -- AndyC_772 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ AndyC_772's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10472 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=41268 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
