new updates in transports or are they obsolete ?

"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.

Reprince,

Do you have any info on how the Forsell sounds more like analog playback?

I can see that a DAC's analog output stage can be tuned to sound "analog". But for a transport to have this effect, the bit stream would have to be modified or "good jitter", if there is such a thing, be introduced into the bit stream.

Kenn 39, I agree with your thinking in theory; I have no idea how Peter Forsell did it, and it certainly doesn't make any sense to me as to how it could happen either, but his transport consistently has had more of the analog-like "bloom" with individual images in the soundstage and a much wider and deeper overall soundstage than other transports I have tried in my system, particularly in its first version (when I had it upgraded to Mk. IV, it gained a little more focus, though not enough to make it sound like a Levinson or Wadia); in addition, I could always play it louder (something you can always do with analog) than other transports I tried, as the digital edge you sometimes get when listening at higher volumes is not there. I am not an engineer, so I can't explain how it was done, but it is noticeable. I do know he used particularly good parts in the building of the unit, hand-chosen for the sonic signature he wanted to achieve, that likely is the main part of the explanation. I'll also note that this transport is particularly affected by isolation devices, which shouldn't in my mind make a big difference in ones and zeros either but does.