CD transport vs streamer?

my squeezebox/47 labs shigaraki dac performed sonically equivalent to my previous 47 labs shigaraki transport/dac combo. the jason is a far cry above the shig. transport though. of course, comparing a $300 streamer to a $10k+ transport is like comparing a kia rio to a ferrari 599 gtb.

i use jitter devices from my mac before going into an external dac. the sound is every bit as good as my classe cdp-10 player, which is an excellent player. the jitter device and dac cost more than the classe did but you can get excellent sound from a mac.

Doesnt the Jason have a very nice preamp function, how do you compare/isolate that from running the SB3 into the Medea or are you running an preamp in between?

I have not heard the Weiss Medea DAC you're using so can't comment directly on it though it does have a good reputation.

However, I run my Squeezebox through a Lavry DA-10 DAC and am very pleased with my system. I settled on this combo 2 1/2 years ago after going through quite a bit of equipment (including a Transporter) for several years preceding that. I've had no urge to change anything at the source end since.

Also, double-check your settings in the Squeezecenter. There are a bunch of possible configurations and some (such as streaming and decoding formats and volume normalization, for example) can adversely affect the sound quality.