DAC for my HHB Burnit

Hi Steve, from ownership experience I can state that the BurnIT, while an excellent recorder, does not make a playback transport capable of matching the sound quality of a DAC like your old Wadia, not to mention the rest of your system. The transport is half the equation sound-wise. If you were to get an outboard DAC, I think you'd eventually want to complement it with a worthy transport. Although I still happily cling to my Theta 2-box front end, if I was starting over again today, I'd just look for a satisfactory 1-box playback solution instead. The recorder, plus the DAC, plus the transport, plus maybe an anti-jitter unit, adds up to a lot of boxes, which means a lot of interconnects and power cords too (trust me, I know whereof I speak ;^). I'd say keep it simple and keep it separate, but if you do go the DAC route, just be mindful that you can't maximize it by using the HHB as your transport. (FWIW after the preceding, I'm converted to van den Hul carbon interconnects for both analog and digital now - for S/PDIF RCA, it's The First Ultimate, 1m being fine. But I still think good 1-box is the way to go and save the money.)

ugh... just what i didn't want to hear alex. well, my other thought, as i still (believe it or not), don't have a dvd player, would be to get a muse model 9, as my player, and use it for dvd playback as well. but i have no idea what it's sonic signature is, just that people rave about it (anything they don't rave about?... oh yeh, my HHB + a DAC... ;)

Believe it? Hey, no Yo la tengo DVD either! Or so-called 'hi-rez' digital audio for that matter, though I'm not as interested in that (and am even less interested in HT). Still, that is part of why I'll also probably look at getting a universal player at some point - just as soon as today's good ones trickle down to Audiogon at half-price or less :-)

I've owned the Bel Canto DAC2, and I never found it 'closed in' or 'dark' at the top. If anything, it is slightly to the sunny side of neutral in the treble.