I'll forgive you for changing the test parameters in mid-stream, to tell you that, yes, I can tell the difference, because the Sony has a crappy transport, despite Sony's insistence that it is functioning perfectly, and as designed, and despite your claim that all transports are indistinguishable from every other.
The playback is faulty, cds skip on the Sony, and no other deck I have or have had, eleven other decks, in total. I ran the Sony through a Grace headphone amp/DAC, to see if the problem with the Sony was transport-related or with the DAC. Same result, so it was the transport.
You'd have to keep me from hearing the transport load and spin up, to require me to hear music to tell them apart, but, yes, in a matter of less than a song, I can tell them apart, using any of 5 DACs I've tried. The Sony transport is a piece of crap, yet Sony insists that everything is fine.
So, since there exists at least one single combination of two transports that do not perform equally well, your claim is false. Not every transport is equal to every other transport. QED.