CD Transports - TEAC Audio
CDs are still widely regarded as the best audiophile medium to enjoy your music, and a wide range of CD playing solutions exist, ranging from one box CD players to multi-disc players and SACD players. We also offer a range of separate DACs and CD transports which can offer superior performance and are considered the optimum way of enjoying CD playback.
Simpy put, CD Transports place into a single box the transport unit of a CD player, eradicating the DAC. Why? By splitting these modules, akin to a separate power amplifier and pre amplifier, the CD Transport can deliver greater presentation than a one box unit as it is designed for a single purpose and does not share mechanisms or have separate power supplies, etc. We provide free UK next day delivery on all of our in stock products, so you can have your kit ready to use in no time at all!
TEAC Audio has produced audio equipment since the days of early reel-to-reel tape recorders and for over 50 years they've been a highly reliable manufacturer of high quality audio products, including their latest range of hi-fi separates and systems.
TEAC manufacture a large selection of products, from state-of-the-art wireless audio streamers to products for audio and video applications. For many sound enthusiasts, the TEAC label shows they are serious with regards to sound quality. Within the industry, it is widely regarded that TEAC products score high for performance.
The brand was the primary manufacturer of high-end audio equipment in the 1970s and 1980s and today still offers a wide range of mini audio systems such as the TEAC HR audio player, loudspeakers, accessories and hi-fi products such as amplifiers and receivers, turntables, cassette decks, CD players, UD-503 and UD-501 USB DACs and tuners.
The turntables are currently receiving a lot of interest, especially the TEAC TN-300 turntable and the TEAC TN-400 BT turntable, with the latter outputting signal to a PC over USB or Bluetooth devices. TEAC also offer the LPR500 - a unique analogue cataloguing product enabling the recording of vinyl records and cassettes onto CD, as well as acting as a standalone playback system.
Founded in August 1953 under the name Tokyo Television Acoustic Company, former aviation and aeronautics engineer Katsuma Tani was employed due to his reputation as a highly qualified creator of audio equipment. This company was merged with the later established Tokyo Electro-Acoustic Company to form TEAC corporation.
Their goal remains to enrich and change peoples' lives and to this end, their designs are sleek and contemporary in aesthetics with audio reproducion produced by the highest quality engineering.
Unlike CD players housed in a single box, dedicated CD transports take the CD reading mechanism and house it separately in one box, taking the pure digital information from the disc, and requiring an external DAC to then convert this information back into analogue and a form which can be fed to an amplifier. You can only connect them directly to your amplifier if your amplifier has a digital input.
If digital information is just a series of 1s and 0s, then why is one CD transport different to another, and why are they priced differently? The answer is jitter. Jitter when reading digital media such as a compact disc can have undesired effects on the quality of the audio achieved – often manifested through clicks, skipping and poor audio quality. Ensuring you have a good quality CD transport, delivering a good quality signal and disc read therefore, can have a significant impact on the sound quality you experience. Some manufacturers offer improved CD clocks as upgrades for your existing equipment that can also affect and reduce the presence and effect of jitter on your music.
Premium CD Transports use several technologies and isolation methods to evade jitter wholly however possible. These units aim to play the CD as precisely as possible without any risk of interference of other circuitry such as a DAC, and top end models strive hard to separate the transport from the power supply, through anti-resonance systems and damping techniques which avert tremors from the power supply that would disrupt the transport’s laser’s ability to reading the disc. Many high end models are intended to elude the automated loading trays of some CD players. As these mechanisms require power to eject and insert discs, avoiding these can prevent the need for additional circuitry and power, thus further isolating the CD reading mechanism from resonance.
Most CD transports will offer both coaxial and optical digital outputs, giving you flexibility to use existing cables and to pair with a range of DACs or integrated amplifiers with different optical inputs.
