DAC - DCS Bartok or the new Berkeley Alpha DAC 3

I auditioned both the DCS and Berkeley family of DACS. Both are fine DACS. I found the DCS house sound to be very smooth. While the Berkeley house sound is leaner and more engaging. In the end I thought the DCS sounded better but I enjoyed the Berkeley more. 

Which Berkely did you buy?

Based upon a very good deal I ended up with a Berkeley Reference 3.

It appears that most of the DACs are not set up to receive 2 channel input from a CD transport.  They all have 2 channels out, but just various connections for streaming, but nothing for transports.  How would I connect a transport to one of these?

A few contributors above have suggested get a good streamer/front end before the DAC. This is the best advice. The enemy of every DAC is jitter and even if a DAC has zero jitter it can't compensate for the jitter coming in. So spend on your front end like you're going to keep it for 10 years and get a $1000 or so DAC.

An Aurender ACS10 will shock you when coupled with a cheap DAC and a N10/N20 will completely blow you away.

An expensive DAC just like expensive speakers will reveal shortcomings from down the line.