Herb Reichert reviewed the DT-6000 DAC Transport—fundamentally a CD player with digital inputs—in his February 2023 Gramophone Dreams column, where he described it as a “well-built, great-sounding, reasonably priced CD player.” He had so much fun using the Rotel—“rediscovering the Joy of CDs: one-box simple, stress-free, plug’n’play, and something physical to touch, scrutinize, and collect”—that he suggested I examine its measured performance.
I tested Herb’s sample of the Rotel DT-6000, serial number 272-2221004, using my Audio Precision SYS2722 system and signals I burned on a CD-R, as well as by feeding serial data to the S/PDIF and USB inputs. For the latter, I used both my MacBook Pro’s USB port, with the laptop running on battery power, and the USB