Well if you use the digital input on your reciever, your reciever is BEING the DAC and the pre-amp and the power-amp stages in the audio chain. Is there a difference between using a dedicated DAC and transport as opposed to your reciever and the digital output of some standard CDP? Many people seem to think so. I got the pleasure to hear the NEC 602 transport that I linked above with a Di/O by ART and it just blew me away. You'd be surprised what kind of details are hidden away, that you wouldn't ordinarilly find. The differences are subtle though, no doubt about that. And as to using a $5 drive as the transport, well, these are supposed to be extraordinarilly good quality (probably because of the caddy).
