Is it time for a locally-built CD Transport?

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DevillEars

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Now that young Gert has settled down to building his "GerDAC", maybe its time we started thinking about a matching "GerCDT"?

The biggest challenge in this approach is likely to be selecting a transport mechanism that offers the optimum balance between "quality/spares availability" and "cost".  In a recent thread on "Digital Drive" on AA, I posted the following:

What has, effectively, happened in this space is "commoditisation" in component manufacture. Below a certain product price-point, the manufacturer is forced into buying-in commoditised components at a cost that will permit a reasonable profit return for a given sale price for the total product.

The volumes associated with PC component manufacture are very high and the resulting volumes (and competition) have steadily driven down the component pricing and, with it, the quality of materials used and the quality of the "engineering" of manufacture.

A few companies - Esoteric probably being the best example - have come to the early recognition that no sane buyer is going to be willing to fork out >$5,000 for a CD player or transport that houses some crappy and nasty plastic mechanism that cost <$50.

Esoteric's response to this situation was to plough in some serious R&D investment to develop two "levels" of transport mechanism:

1) The VRDS-Neo high-end, "cost-no-object" mechanism:

VRDS-Neo.jpg


2) The VOSP "mid-end", "cost-slightly-reduced" mechanism:

VOSP.jpg



Both of these mechanisms feature in Esoteric's range - with model selection being driven by target price-point. Also, each of the two ranges of mechanism are available in a variety of materials permutations which also provide a pricing scale based on cost.

Esoteric's view (which may be shortsighted as mentioned in another post) is that these high-quality mechanisms are one of their key product "differentiators" that permit Esoteric to position their CDP/CDT units as offering unique value over other manufacturers' products where, for various reasons, the mechanisms used are "not really the best available".

So, should Esoteric throw away a competitive advantage? Would you?

Having said that, Esoteric DO offer both the VRDS-Neo and VOSP mechanisms with servo control boards to other manufacturers as an "OEM mechanism" - albeit at a high price.

The latest offerings from dCS incorporate Esoteric mechanisms, but they decline to specify which.

I don't begrudge Esoteric their "differentiator" - although it does tend to push a decent CDP/CDT a bit out of my range... :-(

The real problem lies in the gap in the middle - between the high-cost options like Esoteric and the el cheapo crap at the bottom. This leaves nothing for those manufacturers that are targeting the mid-range market.

PS Audio (according to their very informative website) are in the process of developing a new CDT with a target RRSP of around the $2k dollar mark and, at this price, they are not able to configure even the VOSP Esoteric mechanism, so have had to look to the "computer peripheral" bucket for a mechanism - a move which has provoked some "robust debate" on the forum. The challenge for PS Audio is that there just is nothing in that gap between crap and unobtainium...

The other challenge that this commoditisation and computer peripheral usage has brought to both the manufacturers and prospective buyers is the challenge of "short product life cycles" and "unpredictable availability of spares".

What this means is that you could, quite conceivably, go out and spend $3-4k on a CDP/CDT and in two years when you have a problem with the transport mechanism, you find out - to your chagrin - that no spares are available from anywhere and you have to buy a new CDP/CDT. This is another key in the Esoteric strategy - they don't have this problem!!

Having said that, does anyone here have any ideas on options that would fit somewhere in that "gap between crap and unobtainium"?

Also, maybe someone like the esteemed "Masked Avenger" (aka Schalk) might want, at some later date, look to a joint venture with young Gert and introduce to the Valve Audio range either an integrated CD player or even a CDT/DAC combo?

Comments?

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