What cable are you using, between the transport and DAC? Less than excellent and you could negate any audible gains that, otherwise, might be realized via the outboard DAC.
Is it all in my head?
Okay, sad to admit it but I just did an a/b comparison, granted it was only on one dubbed cd, between my musical fidelity a3.2 cd players dac and my new parasound z dac and could hear absolutely no difference. When I got my dac a few days ago I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, but spank me and call me sally, I can't for the life of me distinguish between the two. I hooked it up such that I could go between the two on the fly with a press of a button. Hmmmm... I could hear a difference between my denon dvd 2900 and the musical fidelity a3.2 but no dice between the a3.2 and z dac. I can also hear slight, slight differences between i.c.'s and speaker cables so I dunno. I think I may be spitting the kool-aid out if it doesn't give me a buzz anymore, or else I'm gonna buy some of those ufo thingies to put on my windows (sorry G).
Doh...
Doh...