Modwright Transporter VS Opera Droplet 5.0 CDP.

Where are you getting $5K?

My AN Kits DAC 2.1C Sig cost me a bit over $2K. Yes, you have to build it, but I am pretty sure there are AN factory DACs under $5K.

I feed my DAC with a Mac Mini going through an Empirical Off Ramp. This gives me 18/96 capability.

If you are going to go with a hard drive transport, there is certainly no reason at all to keep a CD transport around.

Yes, exactly. That has nothing to do with "poor performance". Reliability and performance are not really related.

Tvad, while Trelja has certainly been vocal about his issues with Consonance, I for one don't ever recall him complaining about "poor performance" of the products. I don't own any now but many of the Consonance products are very, very good, especially for the money.

Are you sure your statement is accurate?

Chillinimrod, I've owned both the components you're looking at. My honest advice to you is to buy an Audio Note DAC - more musical than either and by a wide margin IMO.

The c-core trannies are a luxury I don't have. The IE trannies will save $1K at least and, well, this DAC is still a rather amazing performer. More so when fed hi-res, but *well-recorded* redbook material is really quite satisfying. I didn't think digital could be this satisfying after being acclimated to vinyl. I've had it for nearly a year now. Of course, vinyl is still better.

To the OP: I found both the Droplet and the MWT to be technically very good-sounding but to have that digital glare or whatever that just grates over time. The AN DAC just has less of that (a lot). Is it the lack of oversampling and/or the lack of any filtering? Probably. Other than that the AN DACs are just designed and built so well.