The modwright mods have a significant improvement on the digital out of the player. If you look at his site you'll see that he rebuilds the digital out ciruit, there are benefits also from the damping and power supply work he does.
The great thing about mods and the 9000es is that the mods will benefit all formats Modwrights level 3 mods are $800 half the price of a fancy DAC and the modded 9000es kills everything in its price range. If you have no interest at all in sacd and wish to own a seperate dvd player than look at other options...the sacds are starting to roll out...
Also when thinking of a DAC for redbook on the 9000es consider the price of an extra pair of interconnects, a digital cable and probably a power cord. If you buy reasonably priced cables the cable cost will be at least $500 before you even lay out the $1500 for a DAC.
$500 will buy you a lot of mods.
A digital signal may be a digital signal but remember that jitter is jitter and power supply noie is power supply noise. Even a brief audition of transports will show you that there are large differences in quality. The 9000es transport is outstanding and it's internal dac not at all bad, with intelligent mods it is a versitile stunner that shines with redbook.
Asa side note Bel Canto is showing there new dac2 with 24/192 upsampling. Although the dac1 was alittle warm I have never heard anything regarding it being made to be used with older players? It is a nice unit if it suits your tastes and works well with a number of tranpsorts.
