Transport is important almost as cartrige in turntable. Transports are all inexpencive by definition and may be "sleeping" in cheap CD-players. It is known that many CD-ROMs with price bellow $50 have excellent transports. It is also known that famous Phillips Transport is even less expencive.
DAC is just a computer so also cannot cost a fortune and so cannot cost more expencive than computer as well. What counts in DAC is after-chip proccessing and filtering and realy arround 90% depend on the analogue output of either outboard DAC or CD-player.
Many old DACs in that sence do stand-up against modern ones but many do not. Modern DACs mean modern computers that are easier to "recover" in general sence.
DAC is just a computer so also cannot cost a fortune and so cannot cost more expencive than computer as well. What counts in DAC is after-chip proccessing and filtering and realy arround 90% depend on the analogue output of either outboard DAC or CD-player.
Many old DACs in that sence do stand-up against modern ones but many do not. Modern DACs mean modern computers that are easier to "recover" in general sence.