What makes a CD transport good?

[ronardi]

I'm finding a new CD transport for my system. My budget is around $600USD. Within the price range, I can find some old model Teac VRDS 7/10, pioneer PD95 and a professional CD player PMD340 of marantz.

Which one will work best as a transport? I didn't care much about the quality of internal dac as I will use external dac anyway. My consideration is:

1. Which one will provide the most accurate signal? The VRDS, SPM or the VAM 1250?

2. Which interface is the best for digital output? coaxial or XLR?

3. If I will modify the master later which one would have the greatest improvment?

thx

[costiss]

since you ll be using this as a transport, it seems you have those choices, IMHO:
sony xa50es
pioneer pds707
teac VRDS
all of those are extremely reliable and powerfully built.. and include some innovation at the transport:
sony: a powerful laser assembly built like a tank
pioneer: inverted disc patent, used by companies like trichord and wadia
teac: its the VRDS...

if you are limited to the choices you refered to, i think the vrds is the choice..

as for the output, if you can accomodate a properly implemented differential digital aes/ebu output to a 110 R impedance its the best ..