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When I ran into an initial learning curve block with the Music Vault, I reverted to the Transporter's four digital inputs -- Toslink, RCA, BNC, AES/EBU -- and connected a length of BNC Stealth Varidig from my Ancient Audio Lektor Prime player. I selected the proper input from the Transport remote, hit play on the disc spinner - and nothing. Polishing up on Polish swear words like kurwa gowno instead of enjoying Anna Marie Jopek & Friends' Upojenie, it didn't dawn on me until a while later that the Transport too had to be told to 'play'. Selecting the right input alone wasn't enough. Duh. After that hurdle had been cleared, I was up 'n' running.

Sidebar II: The Vault - With no direct keyboard or monitor attached, the NAS by its lonesome flies blind. This compelled Neal van Berg to completely automate what makes this device rip and convert to FLAC files any inserted disc in its entirety. He uses the Grip software with a Linux OS loaded on a memory stick. He relies on CD Paranoia for rip accuracy -- a fitting name to save you the paranoia of worrying -- and tags meta data from FreeDB just as EAC does. That latter bit explains why the Vault needs to plug into your Internet router via Ethernet lead. There's no software recognition data base on the Vault which runs a slow-booting 3.33GHz Celeron engine. All meta data is downloaded from the Internet. For playback, the Vault need not be online - only when you rip. However, therein lies a rub. If FreeDB doesn't recognize your CD, the Vault will neither rip nor eject it to let you know. It'll keep it indefinitely until it finally dawns on you that it couldn't possibly be a slow read-in to eject it manually. This happened with two of my first four CDs to have me face this issue perhaps far sooner than someone with a more mainstream collection of CDs would - continue...
Naturally, running the Transporter as an S/PDIF digital-to-analog converter takes no advantage of its real feature set as a WiFi device. Its true raison d'être is to eliminate laser data retrieval, spinning CDs and the S/PDIF wire connection with its reclocking challenges.


Grabbing music files magnetically off a hard drive and transmitting them wirelessly is where Dan Wright feels the Transporter comes into its own to challenge the very best of traditional digital playback.

The modrighted Transporter is wickedly anachronistic. It combines the most archaic of audio tech -- valves, in my case a Tungsol 5U4GB and two Sovtek 6N1-P -- with wireless streaming, 24-bit digital conversion, an SMPS for housekeeping processing and plenty of surface mount devices. Does that means it's rad? Phat? Bitchin'? Affengeil as the Germans had it 20 years ago? Whatever the slang du jour may be, it most assuredly is all that. It's also very flexible to make taking the measure on its audiophile performance a cinch.
For a full-size 2010 x 1410 image at 174KB of just the Transporter's back, click on the above

It even provides for an external reclocker via a rare Word Clock input, something I wouldn't explore since I don't own an external reclocker. As the upper photo shows, connectivity of the Transporter truly lacks for nothing. That mini toggle next to the second wireless antenna is the power secondary to turn off the valve output stage. This allows you to keep all the digital circuit live while the age-critical tubes are spared 24/7 abuse.


Using the Transporter's volume control naturally decimates resolution if used for serious attenuation. Slim Devices says up to minus 36dB won't impinge on 16 bits. As you'll have already noted, the Transporter's right display can be switched to either show digitized VU meters, dancing LED bars or album data. In the latter mode, it turns into a running ticker tape if the tagged album title is longer than your chosen letter size can display at once. And yes, there are three different letter sizes. Slim should have called them 'young', 'older' and 'ancient' for thoughtfully catering to aging 'philes with fading eye sight. Naturally, you can turn the display off entirely. Kewlness. For some of the display and data options, go to SideBar III.


To get to stuff, the central rotary/push control or remote's quadrant rocker navigate horizontally (left or right) to find to the desired category in the menu tableau, then vertically (up or down) for individual choices within that category. The iPod nation will take to it like ducks to water. Even way-late adopters like yours truly needn't read the owner's manual. It's all mostly intuitive once you figure out that only 'play' initializes a data stream regardless of what the left display may read. Unless you prompt the Transporter to release the goods with the 'play' prompt, it'll just sit there looking pretty. And it can do a lot more than that. The only truly non-intuitive bit is that the Transporter, under Browse - Albums, may not show new albums ripped to its SlimServer (in my case the Music Vault) unless the latter's contents are first rescanned (Sidebar II explains how that's done). Even without rescanning however, you should find the new albums on the Transporter under Music Folder if they don't show under Albums. More on all this when I'm done slashing and burning by way through my library - I mean, ripping and burning the most important discs for evaluation purposes ...