I bought a 9600 to use as a transport based on friend's recommendation, but it is not user friendly in that the remote doesn't have track access by number which means to get to track 12 you have to push play and then push next track 11 times. The other thing I don't like aobut it is mechanical noise, it reads the disc from a computer drive to the hard drive so it makes some (too much for me) mechanical noise as it reads the CD at high speed. As for sound quality (as a transport) I think it has a lot to offer and is similar to using a (what is that thing? I think it is called a "digital time lens") which clocked the player output to a hard drive and reclocked it out with theoretically low jitter. Final analysis (as a transport), not worth it if you want easy track access and don't like exterraneous noise.
Roger
Roger