Good cd player and a great DAC or great cd player?

I didn't say that good speakers should never be used with a less-good source. I said that given a limited budget and an upgrade plan like the (excellent) one Conscious has, he is making the best decision to spend as much as he can on the source first. In this way he will get the most pleasure over the long term.

It's a fact for me. A good source with ordinary downstream gear is more listenable than the opposite. Where I worked years ago setting up turntables, it was easy to hear. We had the cheapest monitor equipment you can imagine, and you could still easily tell the difference between sources of different quality. When a really good turntable, a Linn for example, came in for a checkup, it grabbed everyone's attention.

Upgrading is expensive. It makes economic sense to buy everything in your dream system right now if you can. But if you have to plan to get there over ten years, then I say plan the fewest changes you can, and start with a great source.

Well if this plan is for "10 years" then wouldnt the source be the last thing to get regardless?? Is the CD format going to be the frontrunner in 10 years?

Like stated, the absolute biggest contributor(or detractor)to sound quality is the speakers and the room environment they are in.

Bel Canto first thoughts: It arrived about 2 hours ago. I have it hooked up to JVC DVD player for initial impressions. (We'll begin all the transport switching later. I can't get to anything else. This I didn't need the husband for.) First impressions- I'm in the 10th row of the opera house with Puccini echoing around me; I didn't know that you could hear Tori Amos's piano key come back up; and let's dance. It's beautiful! It made me forget to eat. :)

I'm hoping to pick up the Ikemi tomorrow for the comparison. From memory, I may like the Ikemi a little more, but that might 1. not be true 2. be the more expensive amps (by far) at the dealers 3. be the $10,000 Wilson speakers at the dealers. As promised, I will compare the two and compare the Ikemi as transport vs. my Sony and my DVD player.

For what it's worth, I think that spending money on a source is the right thing to do. There are numerous examples of how a top quality source on a less than wonderful system sounds better than a crappy source on fabulous speakers. I listen to a lot of indie music. It's not going to go SACD or DVD Audio anytime soon, and even if I move to a new format at some point, I have 1000+ cd's...most of which I will not re-buy and will still want to listen to. A good CD player will part of my system for a long time to come. (BTW, there are about 4 album I own on vinyl, cassette and CD.)

OK, I can't resist sharing my updates as they come. We connected the sony carousel to the DAC2 using toslink and the DVD player using coax and used the switch on the unit to A/B (finally a use for the multiple copies of the cds we brought into this relationship). I switched while my husband listened and he switched while I listened. Multiple albums, multiple songs, no idea which transport was which and…we couldn’t tell the difference. At first I thought I heard something, but when I tried to repeat it, it was gone. Shocked me. Neither is a particularly high quality transport. I will let you know if the Ikemi makes a difference.

Joyelise, way to go ! Thanks so much for sharing your impressions so far. I'm really looking forward to more if you get the chance.

Best wishes, Toby