AUDIOLAB 9000CDT CD TRANSPORT. COMPARED TO INTEGRATED CD PLAYER, HEED & AUDIOLAB 6000CDT TRANSPORTS

A stand-alone CD transport, Paul Rigby wonders if it measures up to other integrated players, its immediate competition and most of all, how it stands up to the mighty 6000CDT VIDEO CONTENTS 00:00 - Introduction 2:56 - Closer Look 9:25 - Sound Quality 10:07 - vs Leema Elements Integrated CD Player 14:40 - vs Heed CD Transport 1 7:39 - vs Audiolab 6000CDT 22:08 - USB Play 23:09 - Final Thoughts, Pros & Cons and Rating JAN ERTNER INTERVIEW I managed to steal away the lead engineer for the 9000CDT CD Transport project, Jan Ertner, for a brief chat. Here&what he offered in the few minutes he had free...you can see a more in depth version of this interview on my Patreon page (link above) Paul Rigby: During the comparison between the 6000 and the 9000 I did notice a distinct extra richness and weight to the 9000’s mids and, associated with that, a stronger depth to the bass. In design terms, where do those enhancements come from? What’s actually causing that? Jan Ertner: Aside from the visible external enhancements, there are various significant improvements under the hood. The most obvious is the new tray-loading mechanism – the mech in the 6000CDT is great, but the 9000CDT’s mech offers a number of improvements from an ‘audiophile’ perspective. There’s new servo decoder too – this performs various functions, including controlling the speed of the motor and the movement of the laser, as well as processing the raw data that the laser reads from the CD. The power...