Hi-fi digital front end suggestions for my system

I heard the Transporter in a very good hi-rez system and it was great as a standalone unit. Sounds like the Transporter has excellent built in DAC.

I am also familiar with Benchmark and Bel Canto. It is very questionable to me if either of these dacs can be better or can even compete with the Transporter. But listen if you can before you buy.

Mdht Laboratory makes the Constantine non oversampling tube USB DAC. Enjoythemusic.com gave it good reviews. Designed and made in China and costs $550+-

I just picked up the latest issue of Stereophile today with a review of the Bel Canto DAC3. The review suggested that the Bel Canto would be a good deal at half of its $2500 retail price and that the performance from its USB input fell short compared to the digital input side. By comparison, Stereophile reviewed the Transporter earlier this year and gave it a glowing review in terms of value and sonic performance for its $2000 price. I also like the fact that Modwright offers a reference modification package for the Transporter if I ever have another $2k burning a hole in my pocket...Looks like the Transporter is the way to go in the $2k and under range.

Does anyone here have a Transporter in their system? How does a stock Transporter compare sonically to your reference CD/SACD player?

When I heard the Transporter, it was in Philnyc's system, and it ran into Dodson DA-218 dac. I am pretty familiar with Phil's system and can tell if he changed something from the last time I heard it. Anyway, this wasn't an extended audition, but enough time to get an idea of Transporter's capabilities. We ran it into Dodson via Acoustic Zen Silver Bytes digital IC, AZ Silver RefII from Dodson to preamp....and Phil, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I recall the ICs as either Silver Ref II or AZ Absolute. Anyway, we then ran the Transporter using first the AZ Matrix II and then the same ICs as were used from the Dodson direct into the preamp without the Dodson dac and to say that I was impressed with the sonics of the Transporter is an understatement. The sound was great. Yeah, the Dodson provided more depth to the soundstage and a bit bigger images(that's what I noticed the most) and the Dodson sounded a bit more refined overall, but that's to be expected when you compare an $8k Dodson DA-218 dac to a digital to analog conversion section of a $2k Transporter. But if the Dodson 218 wasn't there for comparison, I doubt that I would be able to pick any shortcomings in the Transporter's performance. Again, you have to listen to it in your own system, but as far as I'm concerned, this piece is a great value and an outstanding performer. I'd not even hesitate to compare it to a solid state cd players probably in the $3-4k range. I found no serious faults in its performance.
Do a search on Audiogon for Transporter in systems....perhaps e-mail few Tranporter owners here and ask them what they think and what they compared it to.

Good luck.

Thanks Audphile1. If you are comparing the sound of the Transporter to CD players in the $3-4k range it is obviously a very nice sounding unit strait out of the box, especially for $2k. I don't have an external DAC in my system, and while my modified Sony XA9000es is great, its certainly not the ultimate player. It sounds like the Transporter might do just as well as my player (excluding SACDs).