DAC and transport equally important: bad transport could make an otherwise good dac slow and mudded, while a good transport could be "slowed down" by a bad dac. Still, I think, the most important thing is the amp-loudspeaker relationship. Unfortunately, as very wisely was written above by Sean, many system unable to give back the roughness and inmediacy of live music. None the less, they are voiced to give back some of the elements of musical experience through coloration and exaggarion of certain elements of music, which may trigger emotional involvement and/or pleasure of enjoyment (this is what we call in our poor language "transparent", "neutral", "warm", "bass", "airy", "open", "musical" etc.). To PRAT one really need to find the right speaker with the right amplification. My experience is that, firstly, active speaker, and secondy, very efficient speaker is the way to go. And than comes the issue of source.
