Thanks for the interesting discussion. I currently have a Pioneer DV490-S DVD player and recently ordered a Purity Audio KICAS (regular not Caliente) to use with Sennheiser HD 560 headphones (think of an HD 600 with less bass but clarity and sweetness in the mids). I listen to classical music and do not need the DAC for my computer audio; the sound on news broadcasts is quite good enough as it is.
So the only purpose of getting a DAC or a CD player would be to improve the audio of the DVD player when I listen to CDs. I chose this model because it is code-free and good for foreign films; the sound quality is fine for that purpose. In fact, it is far from bad even for music (DAC of unspecified mark 96 kHZ/ 24 bit). But I wonder whether there would be a major improvement if I sprang for, say, a V-DAC or a Cambridge Topaz or an Onkyo C-S5VL. I own hundreds of CDs but only three or four hybrid SACD/ CDs, so I am much more interested in what the CDs sound like than in SACD. One budget option would be a Marantz 5001 CD, which I understand is very like a 5004 CD but without the digital inputs (which I don't particularly care about).
The clear consensus of the posts on this thread is to go for a DAC. Perhaps not surprisingly, the CD player makers, such as Cambridge Audio, argue that the quality of the transport also matters.
I know that upgrades can go on forever, but my bank account does not. I am looking for a sensible "very, very good" solution, not perfection. (Even the zero option of doing nothing is fine if differences in quality would be minimal.) Which leads to a final question: If one buys the V-DAC, how important is it to get an upgraded power supply, whether the $17 Phoenix or the $250 one from Musical Fidelity (which begins to be a total bill out of my comfort zone)?
Thanks and peaceful holidays.
Actually, with another 36 hours of burn in on the K.I.C.A.S., just about everything is starting to sound seriously good. But the V-DAC will be here tomorrow. Out of sheer curiosity, I looked up transports and came upon the Little Dot CDP-I. I see a bit of discussion of this model in some other threads, but not much. One person had what appeared to be a reliability issue but may have just been a connection problem that can happen to any of us. But I wonder whether we aren't starting to get into what power engineers call the high 9s. 
