full (low cost) digital chain

[raxy]

Hi,

we herea are trying to reach (digital) audio nirvana using high edn transports, DACS, interconnects, amps, headphones/speakers...

Picking the best of each of these components leads to some high cost and complex systems;

I suggest the following approach :
get decent transport with digital output;
feed this to some sort of special digital amp,
feed a pair of headphones with te output of the latter.
Would you like all this to be portable as a bonus ?

In practise, there is one single solution:
use a portable CD-P or HDD-P with optical out,
connect it to an Audio technica ATH-D1000,
this beast has got optical in, oversampling to 96KHz, pure digital amp, and audio technica style sound,

Believe me, using just 2 AAA batteries, It shatters you ears with 105dB/mW sensitivity coupled to 2*35mW embedded digital amps.

Total cost:
~60$ for CDP
~600$ for all-in-one headphones:

compare this to a complete system with audiophile DAC, RCA cable, and heaphones Amp...