What transport for my Birdland DAC?


I recently picked up a Birdland Odeon AG with the reclocker upgrade. I added this to my Nad C321i deck used as transport. Since I am commited to the source before upgrading my amp, I imagine I should look for a new trasport as well.
I have read a few past threads that deal with issues like power supplies and clock upgrades in the transport but over all, I haven't got a clue what to look for.
I need some reccomendations for a budget of say under a grand used.
My system is: Nad C321i as trans.;
Audio magic sorcerer digital cable;
Birdland Odeon AG w/upgrade;
Audio magic Excalibur IC;
Nad C370 used as main only;
GMA europas;
Thanks in advance. Scott
abbeydog
Dubzilla,
Actually next I have StarSound products on the way (hello Warren). Audio points for the Dac to replace the gummy bearlike Panda feet that came with the Birdland.
Also the very thin almost waferlike points for between the spkeakers and stands. Should be interesting.
I believe you have a Birdland dac also a C370 nad right? If so, I would be very interested to know if you run straight in to the main on the amp (bypassing the preamp).
Huge difference in clarity and transparency and the only way to go in my experience here. What did you find?
Check your system posts for more.
Scott
This might be only partially relevant 'cuz I have a completely diff. system than what is being discussed here. However, my CDP also has the option of going direct to the amp.
I played around for a couple weeks with direct to the amp vs. thru my tube pre. What I concluded was going thru the tube pre was significantly better than going direct. I get better bass definition, better midrange & more tuneful high freq. I had to open up my CDP & adjust down the output voltage quite a bit before I got this result.
When I was using the default factory setting even when connected direct to the amp, the dig. vol. control was hovering around 50 (out of 100). This meant that the amp had too much gain. The sound was OK direct & much better than thru the pre. The pre volume control was close to zero!
Reducing the output voltage range helped a lot. The direct sound is significantly upgraded but still a bit lean vs. the thru-the-pre sound. I suppose the tubes give the overall sound that tube character that is so much more appealing.
YMMV. FWIW. IMHO.
Abbeydog, my ideal set up is the Belles 150 amp into NAD CD player into Birdland into speakers.

Unfortunately, my NAD won't output PCM data when watching dvds, which makes it impossible to listen to dvds in this set up. So I've had to use my NAD T752 as a pre-amp, for now, changing the chain to NAD CD > BIRDLAND > NAD PRE > BELLES AMP > SPEAKERS

I plan to remedy this situation with my new Philips 963, which I *think* does output in PCM, so I'll be able to have a much purer signal chain.

I'm going to listen to the Philips for a while and then decide if I want to get it modded.

re:audiopoints. Let me know how the speaker points work out for you. I'm using BlueTac between the Europas and the Osiris stands for now. I"m also using sorbothane footers under the amp and the CDP, but I'm very interested in trying Black Diamond stuff, again, per Roy's recommendation.

Birdland DAC's are very good stock, but can approach world-class when modded.