How important is the transport when using a DAC?

First, all of you need to understand that there is no perfect "reclocking" system in any DAC. They all have drawbacks and imperfections that make the majority of them still sensitive to jitter. Maybe not as much as a DAC from 15 years ago, but still sensitive.

IMO, a lower jitter transport or reclocker after a transport is ALWAYS a good idea. If you read the reviews enough you will find that the reviewer with the low jitter source concludes that most DACs sound virtually identical when driven from this source, even $1K and $8K DACs. The conclusion is that the jitter of the digital source is actually more important than the DAC. It has actually always been the case.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

In my opinion the analogue stage is more important. I owned two Tandberg CD players. These were top of the line CD players selling in the neighborhood of $2,000 in the late 1980s. These CD players were identical in every way except one player was 14 bit and the other player was 16 bit. I compared these two CD players over and over again. However, I was unable to distinguish a difference between the two CD players.

I've found the transport to be as important as the DAC.

Rrgog - Maybe there was no difference in jitter between the two CD players. There were both probably high in jitter. Also, you were likely using an inexpensive active preamp. This will easily mask any differences there. By inexpensive, I mean less than $15K. The best active preamps are tube.

One thing that you all can do to improve the resolution of your systems is to sell the active preamp and reaplce it with a transformer passive linestage (TVC). These beat 99% of active preamps.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

These days, its the least important that it has ever been. Cd transports are pretty much commodity items these days.