ModWright Transporter experience: truth vs. beauty?

[HalleysComet]

I have recently upgraded my Transporter by having Dan Wright at Modwright replace the output (analog) section with his tube-rectified, output modification. I thought it might be useful to discuss my experience with those who have not yet had the chance to hear this unit compared to the original Transporter.

I had purchased the Transporter and was thrilled with the additional control and access I now had to my music collection (ripped to FLAC). But in comparison to my moderately expensive Musical Fidelity A5 CD player, I was disappointed in the sound quality. [NB: in Audiophool terms, is $2500 moderately expensive?]

I felt that the sound quality, while pristine and accurate, lacked the "breath of life" that I cherish in my music. I go to an average of 2 concerts a month, so I'm intimately familiar with the sound of live music, and the Transporter didn't deliver it for me. I was going to return the Transporter at the end of the trial period, but then I decided to use my Christmas Bonus to do the ModWright thing.

I suppose this comes down to the classic "truth vs. beauty" argument. I think Sean Adams would argue that adding tubes (an antediluvian technology) merely adds a pleasant distortion, but that it does not reflect the true content of the original recording. I beg to differ. I think the addition of the tube stage has recreated MORE of the original musical experience. I don't think this can be explained in terms of 2nd harmonic distortion. My experience is that the ModWright Transporter now has the essence of the experience that it lacked before.

For instance, I'm listening at this moment to Putamayo's "Women of Spirit." This is a fantastic album, if you're into female vocalists. Anyway, I've heard both Cassandra Wilson and Ani DiFranco in concert, and the tonality and flavor of the music through the ModWright is "right on!" {said with an ex-hippie fist raised in the air}. This same album played before with the Transporter was impressive in its detail retrieval, but I didn't have the impression of real live singers, sharing an emotional experience with me.

And to me, music is all about emotion, and not much about left-brain rational exposition. I don't want to think about my music, I want to FEEL it! I am now "Transported" and that's a good thing. So if your Transporter leaves you cold (as mine did), there is an alternative out there which IMHO is a real improvement over the already-excellent original.

Hope this helps rescue someone else from Transporter let-down

Frank

[adamslim]

Thanks for sharing (does that sound like an AA comment? ). Out of interest, why did you go for the Modwright over other modders?

[HalleysComet]

Thanks for sharing (does that sound like an AA comment? ). Out of interest, why did you go for the Modwright over other modders?

I've previously purchased Dan Wright's modified Perpetual Technologies P3A DAC and was very pleased with the result (no tubes!).

Frankly, I WAS concerned that this was a "waste of money" but being an audiophile, I've spent money foolishly in the past ;-) so I know what that feels like!

Turns out, Dan's approach made a piece of gear that I didn't want to spend my time listening to into a piece of gear that I spend all my time listening to. That's worth it to me. I have four different audio systems in my home, including a system in the bedroom, living room, home theatre, and my music room. The last is where I do my serious listening, and the MW Transporter has taken up home there.

And for another poster, no, you can't get the same result running thru a tube buffer. BTDT. But spending money and results are two different things (unfortunately). In this instance, I got results that were worth it to me, so I consider it a good investment in my musical pleasure. I probably spend $6-7,000 per year on this hobby --mostly for music and concert tickets/travel -- so it wasn't THAT big a deal for me money-wise. But it certainly hits my hot buttons.

I've never been thrilled with digital music, partly because I'm an old fart with nearly 2,000 LP's, so that's the bulk of my listening. But I'm impressed that the Transporter does so well, and I do think the Modwright approach, which modifies none of the "front end" but only addresses limitations in the analogue stage, is a net improvement.

Use your own ears, then let me know what you think?

Frank

[Apparition]

I've previously purchased Dan Wright's modified Perpetual Technologies P3A DAC and was very pleased with the result (no tubes!).

Frankly, I WAS concerned that this was a "waste of money" but being an audiophile, I've spent money foolishly in the past ;-) so I know what that feels like!

Turns out, Dan's approach made a piece of gear that I didn't want to spend my time listening to into a piece of gear that I spend all my time listening to. That's worth it to me. I have four different audio systems in my home, including a system in the bedroom, living room, home theatre, and my music room. The last is where I do my serious listening, and the MW Transporter has taken up home there.

And for another poster, no, you can't get the same result running thru a tube buffer. BTDT. But spending money and results are two different things (unfortunately). In this instance, I got results that were worth it to me, so I consider it a good investment in my musical pleasure. I probably spend $6-7,000 per year on this hobby --mostly for music and concert tickets/travel -- so it wasn't THAT big a deal for me money-wise. But it certainly hits my hot buttons.

I've never been thrilled with digital music, partly because I'm an old fart with nearly 2,000 LP's, so that's the bulk of my listening. But I'm impressed that the Transporter does so well, and I do think the Modwright approach, which modifies none of the "front end" but only addresses limitations in the analogue stage, is a net improvement.

Use your own ears, then let me know what you think?

Frank

OK... just to clarify, I really am just looking for an explanation (this isn't a veiled attack on tubes or whatever). So: why would you get a different result doing the modwright rather than using a tubed amp? I don't get it--isnt the alleged virtue of both "warmth" or "musicality"? Color me confused.

[adamslim]

The Modwright mod (AFAIK) leaves everything up to DAC the same, but then adds a valve output stage (replacing that in the TP), which is similar to an amplifier. If you contend that valve amplifiers can be superior to transistors, than this could address an area of the TP that might be improvable.

I can't comment as to the efficacy as I have never heard it, but given the dollar rate I reckon I might be able to import one direct and make only a small loss on resale. However, I've just bought speakers, so it'll be a while before I play that game!

[Patrick Dixon]

I can't see that Logitech would mind much about the Modwright TP. They get to sell a TP anyway, so from a business PTV, they make the same profit.

I suppose Sean might mind that someone thinks they can improve on his design, but I reckon he's pretty pragmatic about these things.

[tomjtx]

The Modwright mod (AFAIK) leaves everything up to DAC the same, but then adds a valve output stage (replacing that in the TP), which is similar to an amplifier. If you contend that valve amplifiers can be superior to transistors, than this could address an area of the TP that might be improvable.

I can't comment as to the efficacy as I have never heard it, but given the dollar rate I reckon I might be able to import one direct and make only a small loss on resale. However, I've just bought speakers, so it'll be a while before I play that game!

I think you are correct about the modwright mod, Adam, which is why I think a tube buffer could likely provide the same result at a lower cost.
I do love tubes and I have a tube headphone amp( a huge dual mono with separate volume controls) and it sounds great.
But I don't miss the tubes when I go back to my SS amp with my speakers.
IME, IMS, the Transporter is very lifelike.


Patrick, I see the validity of your reasoning, I will once again plead crankiness brought on by the cold from hell :-)

[HalleysComet]

OK... just to clarify, I really am just looking for an explanation (this isn't a veiled attack on tubes or whatever). So: why would you get a different result doing the modwright rather than using a tubed amp? I don't get it--isnt the alleged virtue of both "warmth" or "musicality"? Color me confused.

Yup, this is where one moves between science and religion!

But maybe there's some common ground here. I think the issues are around the small-signal amplification by op-amp, and the power supply for that stage. If I understand correctly, this is where Dan focused his attention.

As far as I can tell (not being an engineer) the stock stage represents "best practices" for today's players, taking the output of the DAC and creating a stable amplified signal for the subsequent amplifier (or preamp). I think Sean did a spectacular job with this circuit. It's truly clean sounding, based on my few weeks listening to the stock unit. It doesn't lack warmth. it doesn't impart any false sense of precision, yet all the detail is there. Nice work!

So what's missing? Well, I don't have the language for it, but I think it might be described as a sense of "real-ness" or palpability. I wouldn't know how to begin to measure such a thing. Maybe like pornography -- we know it when we see it?

I don't think this is a function specifically of tubes, or not. I've got a solid-state phono stage (Klyne) which is particularly good at rendering this from LP's, via extremely small signals from a phono cartridge. And my amplifiers are solid state Innersound ESL, feeding electrostatic speakers, which are supremely clear sounding. High resolution system, not biased inherently to mushy tube warmth.

Anyway, I found fault with the Transporter for its lack of this characteristic, compared to my current CD player. I actually preferred a Bolder-modified Squeezebox to the Transporter. That unit belongs to a friend of mine who got me onto the whole computer-based audio trend (I was happily mostly listening to LP's before that). I was disappointed, because I consider the Transporter to have much better technology. And the Transporter is such a cool thing, I really wanted it to work in my system.

So I tried a number of things, including inserting a tube preamp (either an Audible Illusions M3a or a Mapletree Ultra4), and a Musical Fidelity XDac which is a tube buffer. In the latter case, I felt that there was a false sense of "warmth" that seemed to me to be euphonic and "phony." the Mapletree sounded "nice" as in listenable, but I lost a lot of detail. And the Audible Illusions also tends to the warmth side of the equation. Just sticking some tubes into the audio chain wasn't the solution.

That's when I heard that Dan was modifying it. Since I have had a long experience with some of Dan's gear, I thought it was worth a try, or maybe I was just throwing more money at the problem? It seemed like a big risk, but I'm happy to report it is working out for me.

I love the Transporter. I'm sure others who have tried it and have found it wanting might be interested in this experience, so I wanted to share, not because I'm such a smart guy -I'm not -- but trying to be helpful. I'm getting a lot of joy out of it and it's nice to share...

Frank

[tomjtx]

You could have gotten the same result feeding transporter through a tube preamp or buffer.

I love tubes also but it is a shame you wasted that money when you could have gotten the same results for a fraction of the price.

It is getting a bit tiresome listening to talk about the illusory "improvements" modded TP's make posted ,IMO, rudely. on the slim forums.
Modwright has it's own forum for that.

[adamslim]

You could have gotten the same result feeding transporter through a tube preamp or buffer.

I love tubes also but it is a shame you wasted that money when you could have gotten the same results for a fraction of the price.

It is getting a bit tiresome listening to talk about the illusory "improvements" modded TP's make posted ,IMO, rudely. on the slim forums.
Modwright has it's own forum for that.

You could have gotten a better result by not posting.