The original poster is probably long gone but I wanted to post an opinion on this too. The other day I tried my 9000ES as transport driving a Link Dac via an Audio Alchemy DTI Pro (the 9000 directly driving the Link Dac II was not a contender, the jitter reducer was needed). At first blush, I believed that the 9000ES did a great job. The sound seemed fuller, even lush, especially lower, and good detail and good soudnstage -- this when I compared to my usual Proceed PDT3 transport. All of that is true and the 9000ES is unquestionably a good transport, but what I discovered is that after 2 days of listening, I still found myself returning to the PDT3. Musically, the PDT3 gave a more incisive, defined bass and more realistic illusion of a cohesive performance -- it kept my interest level up. Again, this COULD be factors such as digital cables used, compatibility of the various components -- all this possible. But I suspect heavily that the 9000 just has some bargain-grade parts that bring its performance down, especially in that noted bass area.
PLUS, don't forget that the 9000 has only the coaxial output (well, toslink doesn't count period), AND that it has that annoying switching on-off as it auto seeks for the disc type (which plays havoc with my AA DTI Pro). No, although I agree that 9000 is more capable as a transport than as all-in-one player, in my experience you can do *much* better with a used dedicated transport in the $1000 range. It constantly amazes me but transports do make a big diff in sound quality, so don't go cheap on that part of your system.
PLUS, don't forget that the 9000 has only the coaxial output (well, toslink doesn't count period), AND that it has that annoying switching on-off as it auto seeks for the disc type (which plays havoc with my AA DTI Pro). No, although I agree that 9000 is more capable as a transport than as all-in-one player, in my experience you can do *much* better with a used dedicated transport in the $1000 range. It constantly amazes me but transports do make a big diff in sound quality, so don't go cheap on that part of your system.