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Which matters more, DAC or transport?

In my search to better the digital playback of my system I've been lead to look at several DACs to couple with my arcam cd36, and have also considered buying a whole new player like a McIntosh mcd 201 or maybe even a lower end esoteric. My question is: will I get better results using a good DAC (for $2000 to $3000) with my mid-fi transport or with a new player that has a better transport mechanism built in, coupled with what's probably a slightly less sophisticated onboard DAC? Also, what do people think of the Bel Canto DAC3? It's one I've considered. Thanks.
128x128jamiek

Showing 2 responses by shadorne

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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
The idea of splurging on a DA then buying a cheap transport, is foolish.

Foolish if the DAC is unable to handle incoming jitter (most DAC's unfortunately). Not foolish provided the DAC is specifically designed to be able to reject incoming jitter. Once you eliminate jitter issues from the transport then the rest is just "bits" and pretty much any old transport can generally read the bits correctly with minimal errors. This has been proved countless times through comparisons of copies of copies of CD's that match the orginal.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
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having owned and demo'd a good portion of what's available on the market. What they do is offer the most natural tonality within the most complete harmonic envelope I have ever experienced. You may think your system has no stridency, but when you put the Morrows in you will remove every last bit of...

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