A "bit" of information

The power supply design, common-mode noise, EMI/RF, pulse aberration,quailty of the parts/design of the digital output circut, vibration control and the power cord all can effect on the sound quality?

my marantz 5 disc cd changer sounds VERY different(like crap to be exact) from my dvd player when both used as transports with my Bel Canto DAC2, with Philips $65.00 dvd player being a clear winner. And WireWorld Super Nova 3+ glass toslink sounds way better than the $25 Monster coax when fed into the dac from same dvd player, and I am not the only one to confirm this in my own system, just for those who beleive all digital cables sound the same. go figure.....

Pondering your question got me thinking about optics, like the ones in cameras. Precision optics render sharp images. Dull optics produce errors, particularly at the edges. While maybe irrelevant to CD transports, the precision concept by itself may not be. The transport conveys electrical or optical representations of the ones and zeros, not the numbers themselves. Because the transport performs a translation of the pits and lands embedded in a CD, how well it achieves this feat becomes important. From the responses you can see that not all transports are created equal.

But more to your point, and processing considerations aside, in any piece of audio gear the quality of the parts used, their stability over time, the quality of assembly and the rejection of outside influences like vibration and radio interference, along with cosmetics, play a role in decision making too.

Welcome to the real world Neo...

Koestner, in my opinion, although some dacs claim superb jitter rejection, their ability to deal with certain amount of junk that comes in from the transport is important. I personally don't think that Benchmark DAC-1 or my Bel Canto DAC2 are so jitter immune. They probably are better in this regard than some other dacs, but again it all depends on how much of that junk that comes in they can deal with. Recklocking the signal could be affecting other aspects of the dac's performance, making overall impact on the sound. I think that the cleaner the signal from the transport, the better the dac's overall performance. Also, this is where a good digital cable comes in. I seem to agree with Rockvirgo
here, it's just like a lens on the camera. Better transmission of the signal, that's all. Just speaking from my experience, this is how I picture it.