What transport for my Birdland DAC?

This might be only partially relevant 'cuz I have a completely diff. system than what is being discussed here. However, my CDP also has the option of going direct to the amp.
I played around for a couple weeks with direct to the amp vs. thru my tube pre. What I concluded was going thru the tube pre was significantly better than going direct. I get better bass definition, better midrange & more tuneful high freq. I had to open up my CDP & adjust down the output voltage quite a bit before I got this result.
When I was using the default factory setting even when connected direct to the amp, the dig. vol. control was hovering around 50 (out of 100). This meant that the amp had too much gain. The sound was OK direct & much better than thru the pre. The pre volume control was close to zero!
Reducing the output voltage range helped a lot. The direct sound is significantly upgraded but still a bit lean vs. the thru-the-pre sound. I suppose the tubes give the overall sound that tube character that is so much more appealing.
YMMV. FWIW. IMHO.

Abbeydog, my ideal set up is the Belles 150 amp into NAD CD player into Birdland into speakers.

Unfortunately, my NAD won't output PCM data when watching dvds, which makes it impossible to listen to dvds in this set up. So I've had to use my NAD T752 as a pre-amp, for now, changing the chain to NAD CD > BIRDLAND > NAD PRE > BELLES AMP > SPEAKERS

I plan to remedy this situation with my new Philips 963, which I *think* does output in PCM, so I'll be able to have a much purer signal chain.

I'm going to listen to the Philips for a while and then decide if I want to get it modded.

re:audiopoints. Let me know how the speaker points work out for you. I'm using BlueTac between the Europas and the Osiris stands for now. I"m also using sorbothane footers under the amp and the CDP, but I'm very interested in trying Black Diamond stuff, again, per Roy's recommendation.

CEC is thew best for you.

Birdland DAC's are very good stock, but can approach world-class when modded.

Who does the modding, Audioengr, Birdland?