Paulsax- I think jitter from a Mac Mini can be dealt with very well by Dacs that employ jitter rejection/reduction technologies. I use a Mac Mini into a Peachtree Nova Sabre dac with excellent results. As good as my Marantz SA11 S1? Not quite, but REALLY close.
CDP or CDP/ DAC - different question
Everyone I've seen this question a bunch of times but I'm not sure that we are asking the correct question. If I buy a box unit and run that way there are lots of reviews/specs etc. If I buy a DAC I can find the same. Thing is if I suspect I want to buy separates and run transport/DAC than I only want to know how good the transport on the CDP is. Problem is that I have never seen any specs on the transport element alone. If I have specs on the Unit or DAC and transport I can make a better decision. I know that there is more to this than the specs but the knowledge gap is still there.
How do you pick a good transport player? Am I missing something?
How do you pick a good transport player? Am I missing something?