Who has found happiness giving up on DACs?

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.... a stand alone DAC is just the evolution of audiophiles' tendency to have a separate component for every audiophile function of their system. It was inevitable. I remember having a receiver back in the 70's. Now I have seven separate components doing the functions of what a single receiver could do alone. Audiophiles tend to isolate and separate audio functions for greater flexibility and ease of upgrading components. It is the way of the future and it's here to stay.
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Yes it is,the American way is to overkill,cheers,Bob

There are also definitely performance increases to doing so, potentially.

As I stated in a similar post: I'm STILL waiting for someone to prove to me the superiority of a CDP vs a computer/dac solution. Yes, Robertbrown, I too have heard a friend's ilink receiving audio from his MSB modified ipod. It was some of the best audio I've ever heard.

Chris_launder: You say the spending big $$$ on a dac is the same as spending big $$$ on a computer....dead money. Does that mean a great dac will be obsolete, or sound like crap after a few years??? You also say that as you get older, you want a simpler life. Huh? What is easier: Getting up to change cd's all the time, or literally having hundreds or thousands of albums at your fingertips using an itouch remote. You've go to be kidding me. You've ALL got to be kidding me.

Cd players must use on-the-fly jitter reduction ALL THE TIME. EVERY ALBUM, EVERY SONG. A computer does it once, during ripping. Then you're done. A hard drive is like a cd in that it's merely a medium to store ones and zeros.

Anyone who thinks cds are superior to a computer/dac either:

1) Doesn't have the time to rip hundreds of albums.

2) Has never heard a computer/dac setup.

3) Too scared of computers.

I'll take ones and zeros on a hard drive over a cd any day.

Right now, just after purchasing a Cary Xciter DAC and putting it into my system I did an A/B/C on the SAME song ripped the same way that was stored on my NAS and on my computer and then I dropped the disc into my PS3 and started them all at roughly the same time. Dexterity is necessary. ;-)

Anywho, after adjusting for volume difference between the outputs they were all pretty much the same though the fiber tended to be a touch clearer on the highs where the COAX was a touch more rounded. However, the fiber was coming from the PS3. The COAX was from an unmodified Sonos ZP-90. The computer usb vs. NAS (which is being operated through the Sonos and feeds through the COAX) offered no difference in sound at all. I listened for about fifteen minutes to make sure and there was no change. And thats through a standard crappy usb cable.

Being that the CD still sounded as good as it did coming over a rather poor format, being fiber, I figure either I need some serious modifications done elsewhere in the system or CDs are still simply the best format. Hmmmm....

To each his own. That's why there are multitudes of options.