GEMINI, trust your own ears first and I think you will come to this conclusion...ONE BOX! I have never heard a transport, dac, "digital lens", sonic binary filtering resequencing turbocharged algebraic jitter reducing blah, blah, blah,.....combination that didn't sound worse than a good one box unit. When you start adding all of this stuff you are INCREASING the circuit path. Also, the achilles' heel of most digital playback is a crummy output stage. Yes, most folks spend all this time on upgrading to higher sampling rates, seventeen gillion 24 bit converters, etc. and THEN run it through a noisy, poorly powered output stage. Do what Dekay above says and audition. Would suggest starting with Arcam, Creek and Rega players. Keep it simple.
for $700 - 1box or 2 box dgtl playback?
I have $700 to spend on a USED digital playback....I was thinking of getting a CAL Delta transport($300), MSB Link 3 dac or Assemblage DAC2(both selling for about $300 each), and a Monarchy DIP ($100)....then again, there is the option of spending all of the $700 on a single-box cd player. I have all the cables I would need on either set up.....comments??