Shanling CT90 CD Transport – Quick Look

All Image Credit: Shanling

2025 has seen a deluge of CD players and transports appear. Now Shanling closes out 2025 with the release of their CT90 transport. Picking up where the ET3 left off, the CT90 stretches to two-thirds width and comes with a flip-up lid with a magnetic puck. Connectivity is also changed and the CT90 only supports Bluetooth 5.0 streaming, meaning no more AirPlay streaming or UPnP/DLNA support; we’re limited to lossy codecs from a smartphone or tablet. This new model is available in both black and silver finishes.

Remember that the CT90 is just a transport, with support for; CD; CD-R; CD-RW / MQA-CD physical media. There is no DAC and the output is purely a pristine digital bit stream. Separating the digital transport from the external DAC will often yield improved sound quality isolating the DAC from mechanical vibrations and electrical noise.

Internally  the CT90 uses a Philips DA11 mechanism controlled by a Sanyo SAA7824 servo to spin the media and a linear low-noise 35watt toroidal supply provides all the power requirements. The internal dedicated up-sampling engine can take those 16-bit/44.1kHz Red Book signals up to PCM 768kHz or DSD512 native over I2S. However, coaxial and TOSLINK are limited to PCM 192kHz or DSD64 via DoP. There is also a USB output for USB DAC connectivity, but it doesn’t carry any upsampled signals, only a CD’s 16-bit/44.1kHz data. Audio processing is supported by dual 45/49MHZ oscillators and an external word-clock input is also available that supports both 44.1KHz and 10MHz modes.

Control is available using the front panel 4.8inch display that shows playback information and system status, transport buttons and 3 colour rotary control and their own Eddict Player companion app.

As stated earlier, rear panel connectivity is all digital and includes; 2 x AES/EBU outputs, 1 x  coaxial and TOSLINK connections and 1 x I2S output via HDMI that offers 10 different pin configuration modes. An external BNC word clock input is provided and the single USB-A socket supports playback from flash drives (2TB) and external storage devices. With Bluetooth 5.0 input supporting LDAC, aptX HD, aptX and AAC codecs.