Transport for DAC

Agree with Kijanki. Transport can matter but it depends on DAC. A good transport does not necessarily have to be expensive these days also.

I use the transport still in my Denon player with external DAC. The sound is essentially identical compared to same source material ripped to music server and streamed via Roku Soundbridge network player to the Paradisea DAC, which is not upsampling but still has good jitter suppression characteristics supposedly with most decent transports.

I'm not familiar with the jitter suppression capabilities, if any, of the Bel Canto DAC3. But assuming they are not comparable to those of the Benchmark DAC1 which Kijanki referred to, keep in mind that the length of the interconnect cable between transport and dac is perhaps just as important as the dac itself.

See the following thread for a complete explanation and supporting references:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1237611683

It is essential that the interconnect be no less than 1.5 meters long. Longer than 1.5 meters may be ok, but 1.5 meters is generally considered to be the ideal length.

Regards,
-- Al

keep in mind that the length of the interconnect cable between transport and dac is perhaps just as important as the dac itself.

Correction: At the end of this sentence I meant to say "as the transport itself," not "as the dac itself."

Regards,
-- Al

Mapman - I think that people who prefer NOS DACs (that definitely require good transport) don't object to upsampling but to digital filtering. I enjoy my Benchmark DAC a lot but recently read review of Meridian 808.2 CD player - upsampling player with different type of digital filter. John Atkinson said "it's the finest-sounding CD player I have yet heard". I hope so, for $17k - My Sony DVD player was $60 ($1060 with the Benchmark DAC1).

Kijanki -- Do you happen to know if the dac chip(s) and circuitry are identical between the current versions of the dac1, the dac1-usb, and the dac1-pre? Their site has a comparison chart that deals mainly with functionality differences, but it's not clear to me if there are circuit differences in the dac sections. I'm thinking of getting one in the foreseeable future.

Thanks!
-- Al