I need help - Better DAC or NEW CD player?


I am in the middle of purchasing some components for my new system, unfortunately, reading posts on a rainy night on Audigon only makes my "upgradeatitis" syndrom more acute.

The problem is that some time ago, I bought a squeezebox Duet, to use as transport for lossless files. The idea obviously was to get a good DAC to go along with it.

The one I was almost set on was the Dacmagic, which gets very good reviews here and almost everywhere you look. But, on the other hand, I am willing to spend a little more......Now, the thing is my current CD player is a Rotel RCD 1072, and was wondering whether this Dacmagic would give me any improvements if I use the rotel as a transport for it.

Or, I could get for example a Wyred DAC or a Benchmark DAC1 and use the Rotel for transport, but I dont know the limits of the Rotel as transport alone, I dont want to spend 600 more bucks on a better DAC to be fed with 2 "not so good" transports (the Duet and the Rotel).

So I am kinda stuck!! On the other hand I am contemplating getting the Dacmagic to use only for the Duet, and getting a new better CD player altogether, which puts me into another doubt, I dont know if the little money I can for the rotel + lets say 1000 more will really give me any improvements in the system if I purchase a whole new CD player since the Rotel is said to be very capable.

FWIW my amp will be a W4S STI500 and speakers are B&W 803D.

Let me know what you think about this and your suggestions on what you would do.... thanks in advance for all your help!
demianm
Dont worry, I am getting a ton of information nonetheless. Just to add a bit more confusion, does anyone have anything to say about the W4S dac-1 which is coming out now? It is said to be better than the stage 4 PS audio DLIII which was indeed very good.....It is also one of my options.
4est,

My comments were regarding the Benchmark DAC design and what differences might be heard there and why. My system really is not even relevant to that discussion.

That aside, I think you underestimate the ability of the OHMs to resolve detail for whatever reason. I hear significant differences with the OHMs whenever I change something, including ICs and wires so my experience is not consistent with your assessment.
4 EST, as I said, I don't run the DAC3 at all using usb. For you to nitpick my observations, while simultaneously saying you don't know what asynchronous upsampling means, pretty much makes your comments unhelpful. That said, Bel Canto (and others) make USB asynchronous adapters that convert the USB to SPDIF. There's a review in the latest Stereophile of some new entries on that front. USB is not a great interface due to inherent jitter issues, which has been covered ad nauseum elsewhere. Since the OP asked for advice about DACs and Squeezebox, I offered my firsthand advice on that topic. Go coax or SPDIF if at all possible into your DAC from Squeezebox.
PS, Demianm, I bet the new W4S Dacs are going to be interesting, and a good value with the Sabre 32 bit DAC. I have thought about comparing the DAC2 vs the Bel Canto DAC3...someday!
"The Benchmark is not really async, but adaptive if I understand it"

- You don't. Benchmark resamples data with new asynchronous clock.

"you contradicted yourself. First you said that transports won't make a difference. Now you are saying Once you have different transports all bets are off".

- No I did not. Transports don't make any difference as long as they are "bit transparent". Cheap DVD player might deliver the same performance with Benchmark as expensive transport - not true with other non-jitter rejecting DACs where sound quality is proportional to transport quality (jitter). CDP with dirty or weak laser (or digital volume control or DSP processing etc) might not be "bit transparent". I was merely trying to understand how you can hear -160dB.

I will also restate that spdif cable quality does not make any difference with Benchmark.