Will computer to DAC replace transports and cdp's?

Glad to be of help Tom. I'm a visual person (by profession too), so I also tend to understand things better when they are explained in some terms I can acutally visualize. I've found in teaching that really helps many folks understand.

My humble opinion is that this is just the beginning of (some might say "the end") computer based audio. You will be much better off learning early rather than wait. The storage software and data management may evolve, but I don't think the file formats will change all that much when it comes to the lossless variety. Compression schemes may change. But I don't think you're at much of a risk of facing a "Betamax Scenario" any time soon.

Marco

I totally endorse the Squeezebox as a great way to get computer-based audio without having a PC in the room, but to get great sound out of it you really need a DAC that has excellent jitter-rejection. The best news on this front is the Lavry DA10 'Black', which brings 'synchronous reclocking with deep buffering' down to the $1000 mark. You will also need such a DAC with many of the devices that are used to get SPDIF out of a computer. The other alternatives are to get a DAC with a master clock output and a computer card that is word clock capable; or to get a DAC that supports asynchronous USB audio (just because the device is USB does not mean you automatically get the benefits of asynchronous mode). Note that some DACs use an asynchronous sample rate convertor in the signal path to reduce jitter but these DACs actually change the signal as a result. The success of these depends on how well they are executed (from the Benchmark, Bel Canto, Audiomeca, Nagra, Audio Aero) but it does bother me that they change the original signal.

The best jitter reduction scheme is to clock the transport from the DAC. Therefore, the sound from a server based system will not be better than the EMM combo originally mentioned, even if an EMM DAC is used.

The EMM DAC must convert incoming PCM to DSD in order to convert to analog. If the servers sound card has a clock input and can be re-clocked by the EMM DAC, then you can come close to the EMM transport /DAC combo.

Just FYI - There is a book called 'ipod and itunes' for dummies. that alone might be a reason to use itunes instead of foobar.

i had been reading steve nugent's comments at empirical audio about sound quality burning with EAC v. itunes and also playing back music using foobar v. itunes (steve believes burning using EAC (exact audio copy - a free program) combined with foobar playback is the best. Frankly i hope that's not true because it seems there's more support for using itunes (like the dummies book)

Does anybody believe one is preferable to the other as far as sound quality?

There is a point at which reducing jitter further becomes irrelevant alongside other issues, but I acknowledge some will differ on when enough is enough.