Please Recommend Transport + DAC for $5K total

I agree the CXC is a great transport I used it with my McIntosh DAC ,once I bought it it’s the first time that my CD collection come as close as possible to pure analog sound as my vinyl collection,of course there are better transports but you will have to spend many times more than this excellent transport.this one of the best selling product for Cambridge Audio.

@auxinput

I'm experimenting ripping some CDs and sending them through the Amanero USB to I2S board to the LKS.  The results are very promising.  But I want to do more before I conclude it's not wishful thinking.  But after all, the board is there precisely to re-clock the incoming data (twice?) and seems to work wonderfully for the DSD out of my laptop.  And as I eventually want to rip all my CDs to the hard disk, this seems to be the way to go--rather that with a transport.

Now I'm discovering that people are converting the CDs to DSD, as high as DSD512 (using a lot of storage) and sending the files through the board to the LKS with great success.  More experiments to do.

@melm - interesting.  It’s too bad you don’t have a desktop.  Next year I plan to buy the DAC first, but I will probably get the following as well.  I’m currently running digital coax out of a Xonar Essence PCI card.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pink-Faun-I2S-bridge-LKS-audio-Model-IV-Pink-Faun-IL3-I2S-HDMI-to-RJ45-cable/281933158086?hash=item41a48696c6:g:wu0AAOSwUuFWvK9v

it says it comes with an RJ45 cable wired specifically for the LKS i2s input.  The Pink Faun does not support DSD, only PCM up to 192 which is fine for me.  But I will likely experiment with DOP, as the LKS will accept DOP on its i2s input.  

I also read read that another DAC did DSD better than this LKS, but the LKS won for PCM format.  

@auxinput

Interesting.  I had a look at the Pink Faun and at the TNT review.  You have to wonder why, though, it hasn't found much favor though it's been around for several years.  I think that perhaps it may have been the recent and rapid improvement of USB to I2S converters like the Singxer SU-1 and the LKS USB-100 (the latter being the same circuit as in the upgraded LKS 004).  Both of these accommodate DSD and PCM and have received wide acceptance, and can be used with lap-tops.  Also, do you know why PF charges a premium for the LKS version?  Isn't it just a matter of making up the cable (HDMI to HDMI, or HDMI to RJ45) to accommodate?

Looking at the Pink Faun lit. they make a great deal of the file to USB within the computer as though it's some sort of massive "conversion" which I think is really overstated.

In any event you might want to consider whether doing without DSD (in native form) when running the LKS is a good idea.  I have had a lot of success with SACD rips (especially "pure DSD" from analog originals) and at least one correspondent at the Asylum writes, " With DSD512 [using HQPlayer to upsample from red book] the LKS sounds like an analog rig".  Though upsampling rb all the way to DSD512 seems like a mighty stretch.

Of course, as usual, YMMV.

For a CD transport, I would highly recommend the belt drive CEC TL-5 that I have (around $2000). The Audio Note CDT Zero is another option to consider. A good transport, with a high grade mechanism, will definitely be an improvement over using a CD player for transport duty.

As far as a digital cable, the Cerious Technologies Graphene Extreme ($200) is hard to beat.

For the DAC, I’d definitely go NOS, like the AN DAC o.1x or 1.1x.