Transport for Bel Canto DAC2


First, my system:
Green Mountain Audio Continuum 1.5 Speaker
Rogue Audio Tempest Magnum Tube amp
w/JP Cables Maximum AC Gold Power cord
Bel Canto Design DAC2 DA converter
Bolder digital cable Interconnect
Silver Audio Hyacinth Interconnect
Zu Wax Speaker cable

I listen to a variety of music including jazz, rock, pop, electronic, etc. I currently use a Toshiba DVD player as the transport, but I hear too many digital artifacts, and I wonder if it is the culprit. Any suggestions? I'm hoping to spend under $400.
eeerie1
By artifacts I mean I hear harshness, and sometimes what sounds like pops. The Toshiba DVD player is just a cheap player - don't recall the model #.
Hi Philnyc. I believe my digital cable is 0.5m long. How would the extra lenght help?
Hi Jamesw20,

The hard drive based system sounds very intriguing, but it is out of my price range at the moment. Are they able to keep the hard drive quiet?
Hi Gmood1. I'm not familiar with those devices. What do they do, and how would they help clean up the signal from the transport?
Eeerie,

There is a pretty good (IMHO) explanation of why digital cable length makes a difference here (assuming you are using coax instead of optical):

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue14/spdif.htm

If the article is too technical to understand, the gist of it is that a 1.5m digital cable is able to hold the entire length of a square wave's "rise-edge" based on spdif specifications, and that shorter cables can cause jitter-related problems because of mismatched impedences and the resulting signal reflection inside the cable.

The other important factor is to make sure the digital cable you use is truly 75ohms.

If a hard drive solution is interesting to you, also check out the Squeezebox by Slim Devices (http://www.slimdevices.com). It's only $250-$300 and works with iTunes...