Will computer to DAC replace transports and cdp's?

Grannyring, sure I have seen wadia with input cards, and Quad Audio type CD players able to play the disk and have an external music source flow thru right to the internal dac, they even come with several digital inputs I think too.. This is good because you can have a good transport right there, as well as all your high quality cables are shared to feed the analog audio signal to your system after conversion...This eliminates having to have several cables too. So yes even the super hi-end pieces can be modified to be not completly obsolete. But I just choose to for now use a good DAC cause it will never go out of style and is a safer investment and will always just be a good decoder box basically for whatever Redbook source can be thrown at it, and just Run any type Transport I want vs. expensive CDP,Plus Dac's in general now have extra input so I can leave a transport and when the Audio MEdia systems settle down, can hook anything else simaltaneous to the same dac and not lose out on anything.. But I will never invest in a a very expensive straight CD player again, cause yeah unless they all start offering or can even fit the extra components in it for external devices to share the dac its a risk, and will start loosing value more and more.

Given the above, it would be great to have an ipod with a digital output for a DAC.

Matrix, all good points.

My player is also a top end DVD, DVDa multi-channel player used as part of a combined 2 channel and HT system. Muse Thalia. I need it for this use and the computer based system wont help in these areas. I dont want to buy a DAC but may be forced.

Bill

I have thought the same about Ipod but it will not have quality sound files in the first place like the lossless systems of the other types, I think it is primarily compressed files like mp3 or something... from what I understand the only way is to have a big Gig hard drive or memory card type setup and transfer CD completly un-altered, an Apple type computer is suppose to be excellent, but Ipod itself is not near the quality of CD from my understanding.

Remember computer transports aren't limited to 16/44, spin at a much higher speed than cd transports, don't loose any data (computers can't afford to loose data), don't have to have a correction circut to guess what is correct.
They are like stereo's in the fact different power supplys offer different sound . Some control the bass better , some have better midrange etc. You can download a ton of free things, like upsamplers etc.
I have owned a Levinson 37, a CEC tl,a Sony 777, an Ayre d1x and now the Audiomeca Mepisto . I think the computer, with the off ramp turbo may be better in my system. Hope this helps