CD Transport - budget in the order of £1500

From the OPs second post on this thread:

"Yes, I have a DAC already, but the "plan" is that it will be upgraded in due course."

I heard Linn full rig - thouroughly didnt like the sound - personal prefference, and price wise is another league (I demod the Klimax top end set up).

I really like Naim stuff though, but it didn't better the Plinius CD player. I have another thread that talks about streaming (sonos) and that I may move to Naim for streaming quality - but to be clear, I know its not better than my CD player, i just love the control.

Even more reason to match them together.

Correct.  As has been explained the new DAC is to come before a new CDT so the CDT would not be played through the Arcam rDAC.

Yeah you have to be carefull because you heard it in a Linn system it would have been affected by the amps etc.. You need to hear them in your system (or one you like the sound of). I don't like Naim sound at all and only tried it out of interest but it really is amazing, unbelievably natural and analogue sounding.. Yes i'm sure your CD player is fantastic at a similar price point Electro EC 1UP is meant to be incredible.. I think mine for £1900 is extremely good VFM. Give the NDX and ND5 a home dem in your system if your thinkin of moving from sonos.. 

No need to apologise.  I admit I've not yet heard a Hi Fi streamer, but currently I can't get my head round why pulling the data from a hard disc should be any better than pushing it.

I was also going to tip-toe in with the streamer suggestion, as it does away with all "what transport" dilemmas (which imo do make a difference); as well as all the inherent problems associated with a mechanical spinning disc.

I am quite convinced that a (well conceived) streamer, comfortably outperforms the equivalent CDP. I think the CDP (not necessarily CD) is on the decline, and so it may not be wise to invest a substantial sum in it.

Now that is a good point...

Because playing a CD involves a fast spinning non-sealed disk. If the disk and player are 100% clean then the effect will be the same. But the dirtier they get, the more error correction occurs, until you start getting drop-outs.

Or conversely, you use something like EAC (Exact audio copy) or dbPoweramp to create a bit-perfect copy of the CD. They include all the error checking and will check resultant rips against a database to make sure they are perfect.

Then you play from an air-tight, sealed hard disk, or better still a SSD which has no moving parts at all. So now everytime you playback the album, song, whatever, you get a bit-perfect rendition. Make a backup of your rips and you have a perfect, indestrucable (save a comet hitting the earth), identical copy of all your music.

And when you buy a streamer, make sure it can playback "gapless". Some of the silly priced ones can't. And it's been proven that the likes of Squeezebox, Sonos etc are bit-perfect. So feed to a modern DAC and you have as good a sound as the most esoteric transport you can imagine.

From the review in Hi-Fi World december 2011:"Listening to the excellent Cyrus CD Xt SE+ transport, which costs f1,550, the opening of Mahler's second symphony is more rounded sonically. There seems to be less detail to the bass, while it is a pleasant sound, it lacks the definition that the Bel Canto has, almost as if there is a cloud of dust surrounding the music. Cello and bass notes don't have the same sting and attack. The soundstage doesn't have the same sense of layering that the Bel Canto provides as a transport. It is quite hard to tell that the basses and cellos are playing an octave apart, both pitches being subsumed into a single note. On this recording the Bel Canto does a better job on its own than the Cyrus does using the Weiss DAC202. This surprisingly shows the importance and contribution that a good transport makes."

Bel Canto CD2 is cd player, transport and preamp in one box and still outperforms a "dedicated" top end Cyrus transport.

just on opinion to think about...

Get the oppo blueray player 105EU  around 900 pounds.. I just got one. In a word stunning!! For some reason it sounds better through my M-dac than my rega dac. If you looking for all in one then this may just be the ticket. Not sure if u got home cinema setup.

The oppo & M-dac sounds better than my cambrigde Audio 840c cdp by a mile & that cdp in good in its own right.

Fr0g, I think you miss my point.  I stream music from my iMac already, ripped with Rip i.e. exact CD copies, and it's pretty good.  Not as good as my current CD player, but pretty good.  I'm sure a better DAC would improve it, but I'm sceptical as to what a streamer would add.

I would suggest that attention to the original post and some, only some, of those that followed might have been appropriate before jumping in.

But it has no digital inputs so I couldn't harness its DAC for other duties.  It might be a superb transport, but I'd rather not pay for a DAC and preamp I wouldn't use.

Given that you have taken against any answers other than those as a direct answer to your question, I'm not sure where this thread is going. You've had very few suggestions of transports in the main because very few people have heard these transports, because they use alternative sources, cheaper sources or all in one CDPs. Of the suggestions you have had, many of the people haven't heard them and even fewer, if any, have heard several of them to compare. You then criticise even those who have answered the question by saying no-one's suggested the Heed to you! It seems to me the best way to go about this would be simply to research all the transports in your price range, read the reviews that are available, find our which you are able to get held of and then listen to them yourself. You could do us all a favour with a detailed report of your findings. This may actually help someone. This thread has achieved nothing other than to aggravate you and stoke up old arguments.