Upsampling/Advice on Transport


After reading Sam Tellig's piece in the Feb. stereophile, I've decided that I want to take the plunge into upsampling via the MSB Link DAC. Unfortunately, my current CD player (Sonic Frontiers SFCD-1) doesn't have digital outputs, and so I will need to get a transport. His article implies that the quality of the transport is virtually irrelevant (he even used a Radio Shack portable and got the same results), because part of his suggested system is a Monarchy Audio Digital Interface Processor, which acts as a jitter reducer. So here is my question: in order to get the best sound, do I need to spring for an expensive transport, or will any consumer-grade CD player with digital outputs do the trick. Opinions?
miguelk
I use a Nakamichi mb 10s and a MSB link III with the upsampling option and the combination works great! I believe that the trans port makes no significant difference so I went with a good 5 disc changer for the convenience and then the MSB sound is amazing! Total I have spent 700.00! In my opinion go for a good quality disk changer marantz or ect.. and the msb you cant go wrong!! Jim
Marantz makes some inexpensive cd players with digital outputs. There used to be a lot of used/demo stuff on ebay. I bought a demo CC-67 for $168 a couple of months ago. It works fine as a transport.
One of the best tranports is the Audiomeca Mephisto. I just replaced the Muse 8. Great air and detail.
I have MSB DAC1. no upsampling, no mods. I've tried it with DVD players (pioneer525 and apex)and HK CDP as transports. One think that bothered me about DVDPs was mechanical noise from spinning CD (this is the case for all cheap DVD players). Soundwise all transports sounded differently. Pioneer sounds better then Apex. Generally, I'd say entry level CD players (upto $300 ) with digital output is a better choice for music reproduction.