Thanks for the great link Jason.

I'd love to see Stereophile review the Playback Designs MPS-5 and see the related measurements by JA. (PD claim zero feedback. It would surprise me to see that is true). Alas, I'll need to just be satisfied with the sound as PD is unlikely to ever have enough dealers to qualify for a Stereophile review.

Dave

Very interesting

Fascinating. John is to be commended to such an in-depth and informative article. The Sony Playstation looks quite a bit better than the Marantz, and the G3 iPod looks impressive, as well. I'm curious how the new Oppo Blu-Ray player, and the Slim Devices Transporter will do. I just spent part of an afternoon at a friend's house yesterday listening to the Transporter and it looks like a great value proposition as a front end for digital music servers. Sounds really good, too....almost as good as vinyl!

Quote:
Fascinating. John is to be commended to such an in-depth and informative article. The Sony Playstation looks quite a bit better than the Marantz, and the G3 iPod looks impressive, as well. I'm curious how the new Oppo Blu-Ray player, and the Slim Devices Transporter will do. I just spent part of an afternoon at a friend's house yesterday listening to the Transporter and it looks like a great value proposition as a front end for digital music servers. Sounds really good, too....almost as good as vinyl!

Stephen,

I've had my Transporter for over a year now and it's great sound still hasn't worn off.
It's stilll one of the best DACs I have heard.

I run the TP direct to my amp which sounds better than using a preamp. when used this way you don't have the spidif jitter problems
the only downside is I have to reconnect my phono preamp when I listen to vinyl.
I ditched my CD transport and DAC shortly after and never looked back.
When I buy a CD it gets ripped lossless to my hard drive. I use an Itouch with Ipeng software for a very cool interface.

That's so funny, the friend I was visting yesterday did exactly the same thing. He also manages files EXACTLY the same way as you; ripping lossless to his Mac Pro HD, and then using the TP as a music server and controlling everything via iPeng on his iPhone. He is particularly jazzed about using the iPhone to control the music files via the TP.

He only recently hooked the TP back up to his pre so that he could listen to the turntable as well. His situation is a bit more complex because all the components sit in cabinetry custom-built into the wall. He also says the TP has a superb DAC.

Quote:
That's so funny, the friend I was visting yesterday did exactly the same thing. He also manages files EXACTLY the same way as you; ripping lossless to his Mac Pro HD, and then using the TP as a music server and controlling everything via iPeng on his iPhone. He is particularly jazzed about using the iPhone to control the music files via the TP.

He only recently hooked the TP back up to his pre so that he could listen to the turntable as well. His situation is a bit more complex because all the components sit in cabinetry custom-built into the wall. He also says the TP has a superb DAC.

Did you see Ipeng in action? It is an elegant interface.

The Transporter is a relative bargain in audiophiledom.
HD space is so cheap now it costs little to create a great server with an existing computer, Transporter, Itouch/Ipeng.

An even bigger bargain would be an SB3>Cambridge DacMagic for a total of 700.00.

We are in wonderful period of great sound for less money, IMO

Not only did I see it in action, I used it. It's way cool, and a well-thought out integration for the most part. Still some bugs here and there, but for the most part, it worked well.