Does the transport really matter? In my experience, yes, at least as much as the DAC itself. Even with a jitter-reduction box in between, and a balanced connection, and extensive power conditioning all around. And my admittedly limited experience has been that the mere fact of taking the data off a hard drive, rather than disk, is no panacea or guarantee of superior results either. Every change to the digital front end I've tried was clearly heard at my ears, including digital interconnects, power cords, and transports/players. But my Theta DAC was a hot ticket 10 years ago, and while my tests during interim have comforted me that it's not obsolete by my own standards, take my observations for what they're worth in light of your definition of "kick-booty". Still, if transports didn't matter today, then why would the world's latest and greatest disk-playing gear continue to place a premium on their functional integrity?
If you have a "kick booty" DAC, does the transport
really matter as it is just a "reader" correct. Am I over simplifying it. When you plug your player into an outboard DAC don't it bypass the internal dac and stuff and shoot it to the outboard? Isn't the laser just reading the 1010101 on the disc and shooting the data to the DAC? If this is true can't a Joe just get a whatever player with coax/i.r./esbu out and just invest in a high horsepower DAC?