Looking for a DAC for the Squeezebox Touch

+1 on the Metrum Octave...doing wonders in my system Logitech Transporter > Shindo Masseto/Cortese.

Jcote- Is your Transporter stock or Modwright?

All stock...most of the Modwright mods impact the analog outputs which are pointless if taking it out to an external DAC. The Transporter is known for it's ultra low jitter so I don't feel the need to add an external clock source either although i'd give an Empirical Audio Offramp or other clock a try to see if there was a large enough improvement to consider. The Transporter does have a word clock input.

"In doing my research I soon realized that most people involved with primarily digital audio setups are on a different better or worse scale than the analog side. You can usually trust the, "it sounds better," remark, but I found just how much better is much less than analog."

Agree there is a much larger difference in sound quality in practice between the best and worse analog setups out there compared to CD/digital.

With digital, improvements with the digital source alone may be quite marginal at some point with greatly diminishing returns. Unless you are rolling in cash, I recommend doing the homework and starting with a well received sub $1000 DAC and see where that gets you compared to say any high end reference systems out there that you might have access to for comparison.

Wonder if it's worth to get the Metrum Octave to connect directly to a SB3 through optical link without reclocker?
Thanks.