How to get into high end digital? (Feeding a DAC)


I am looking primarily at the Schitt Yggdrasil or the Topping D90.
  • How does one feed those?
  • I am assuming any sort of CD transport would output the bit stream?
  • or… they get saved to file and played from some media player into the DACs.

Some example of what is commonly done would be great.

The system currently consists of:
  • TT —> Audio Research PH2
  • An old Nakamichi 5 disk CD player
  • TV
  • Audible Illusions line stage (New tunes on the way, but it still sound OK to me with the old tube in it)
  • Prima Luna (with GoldenLion and TS KT-120 one the way… and I might I’ll get the VTL mono blocks 100w/ch serviced)
  • Vandy 2C and Vandy sub

I also have a Home Theatre pre, which is Roon capable, on the way… So that maybe does some of this for me as well? 

But to be totally honest, the digital side is a bit of mystery to me.
I have always thought we plug in a CD player and the signal comes out. (Maybe with some nuance in DACs, clock jitter, and filtering to separate the higher end from the lower end products.)
128x128holmz
A $500 Cambridge CXC transport + a $300 Khadas DAC is a formidable combination!
OP

You sound stressed.  Relax.  Digital is easy.  Get a decent CDP or transport, a cable that is at least one step above Radio Shack, plug into a DAC or else just use the DAC in the CDP, sit back and enjoy music.  Add a streamer later if you want, or else just use a computer for that (presumably you own one of those already).
  It would help if you told what your budget is.  You are all over the place.  I don’t want to recommend an $80K digital set up if your budget is 8 cents
I guess I should have expanded a bit on the baggage.
The Yiggy has some historical baggage as one of the worst measuring expensive DACs when it was first introduced. That no longer seems to be the case but since it is R2R that makes it somewhat like the tube equivalent of DACs since R2R is considered to color the sound instead of being transparent. That is true of all R2R DACs not just the Yiggy.

@Holmz

You could use a computer ,using a Ethernet cable 
then to isolate digital noise there are several good Ethernet hubs 
like uptone audio Ether Regen , and Ethernet cables absolutely make a difference , for I had had the latest Topping which measures great
but musically not that engaging, having very good filtering , regulation and linear power supplies , internal dac chips in the D&A  conversion  for my smaller system the Denafrips pontus-2 
was much better musically . My Bricasti M3 with Streamer board
totally isolated the complete Digital feed ,using Ethernet ,
the digital packet stream is cleaned which digital noise is present
from your modem to router carried noise from the outside , a Ether regen  ,or IS2 signal eliminates the noise before it reaches your streamer . In theBricasti case it’s design eliminates this before converting with filtering ,pre,and post regulation and electrically isolated internally .
The streamer in the same chassis with the dac on a very well designed  unit eliminates extra powercord, and cable even lower noise floor for totally isolated internally and yes I have compared to good separate servers like with Melco ,No added expenses, more and more high end companies are offering  Dacwith streamer module boards .
look at Blusound for $550  that's a great dealforamodest setup , the Bricasti is $6500 retail. But loaded with quality throughout and is modular for future upgrades ,their top model is $16k. My point is quality build , and  design count in musicality. As technology evolves the prices reflect this and are coming down.
I guess I should have expanded a bit on the baggage.
The Yiggy has some historical baggage as one of the worst measuring expensive DACs when it was first introduced. That no longer seems to be the case but since it is R2R that makes it somewhat like the tube equivalent of DACs since R2R is considered to color the sound instead of being transparent. That is true of all R2R DACs not just the Yiggy.
Thanks @trevalinjack

Probably liking Neil Gaimon has coloured the Yggdrasil to be worth a left n_t or at least a left eye… which are somewhat similar to an extent.

OP

You sound stressed.  Relax.  Digital is easy. 
I am less stressed than usual…
(but it does seems < easy) ;)