new updates in transports or are they obsolete ?

That will be interesting Rcprince, keep us informed.

Semi - I just leave my laptop on all the time. It has power saving modes for the CPU and screen. Just touch the touch pad and you are up and running playing songs. Much quicker than turning on a CD player and loading a CD, and I dont have to get up from the listening position.

"will hard drive playback capture the transports "delicate" sonic signature"

Absolutely, but with even more clarity.

- will play back on a pc be better coming coming off the hard drive after transferred since there is suppoose to less jitter ?

Playback from the "hard-drive" is actually always from a cache in memory. The data stream from the USB only needs to average the streaming rate. The precise clock is added at the converter. It's in the converter where the low-jitter timing happens. This is where the magic is.

it would appear that a high quality transport with firewire, usb output (or a computer interface /hard drive) would be optimal..

USB or firewire to S/PDIF is a great start. USB or firewire to I2S is even better. Look for my white paper in positive-feedback.com on Computer Audio for more info.

Creek CD50 mk2 uses a computer style transport. It would be interesting to see a review on using the Creek as a transport.

Kana - I have been using a heavily modded Sony DVP-S7700 with the same DAC. It performs better than anything stock, including CEC, which I also mod.