Right. Starting to do some research right now. After a lot of experimentation on this last year I think I found my perfect headphone setup (Not the Big O, BTW) so now it is time for a source upgrade.
I wanted to use a computer setup for a lot of reasons, being convenience one of the most important ones.
However almost all computer setups are flawed by design. This is due to the use of S/PDIF or AES/EBU interface. Instead of having a separate clock signal, the clock signal is reconstructed from the digital data stream getting jitter on the process.
This flaw is affecting typical two boxes high-end systems too. The approach followed there is to throw a lot of money on great transports, interconnects and world clocks in order to mitigate this issue as much as it can be done. Well, until now, when propietary links starting to appear.
So to have a Meitner connected to a laptop is not the solution. Not even by using an external clock like the Apogee Big Ben, although that would make a big difference indeed.
BTW, Meitner is taking the right approach about this issue. Their last DAC and Transport (CDSD-DCC2/6) can overcome the S/PDIF issue as they let you send an independent clock signal. Every reviewer/owner say that the difference between connecting the boxes this way instead of conventional S/PDIF is truly remarkable.
Even jitter-free DACs like DAC1, MiniDAC (and for what I read Lavry or even Dodson which might have the best way to deal with it although I won't talk about it. Details on their website) are quite susceptible to changes on transport on a revealing system, making some combinations almost unlistenables in quite unforgiving systems.
I was aware of a possible solution (I2S, more to come later) but there was no high-end DACs offering it so I almost gave up on the idea of computer audio, going instead for a conventional, single box player. Perhaps Esoteric X-01 Limited or Ayre C-5xe (I only care about stereo audio). Space is a big issue so no multi-box setups.
Then I realized that the last version of Zanden 5000 DAC (the Signature one) has I2S input!!!
I2S is the native interface for most DACs. Much better than S/PDIF as it has a separate clock signal. The guys at EmpiricalAudio have a USB-I2S adaptor. The only problem is there was no high-end DACs with I2S input (the best ones being Northstar and Perpetual Technologies, which seem to be great for the money, though). Well, not until now. Now we have the Zanden 5000 Signature.
Still, I need to check this a bit more. It seems like Zanden is implementing I2S on a not trully conventional way. It was designed for the 2000 Transport -> 5000 DAC link in a similar way of the EMM's approach. Perhaps the signaling is the same but the jack different. I need to contact Zanden and EmpiricalAudio in order to find out. Hopefully it will be possible to get an USB-I2S adaptor from EmpiricalAudio that works with the Zanden 5000 Signature.
So it seems like finally we might be able to get a high-end computer setup:
Computer -> USB-I2S Adaptor -> Zanden 5000 Signature. This still has to be confirmed but it might be possible indeed.
The only problem is that the Zanden Signature is something aroud $16K (Hey, just double! Welcome to Head-fi!). The offers from Northstar and Perpetual Technologies are around $1K-2K and seem to be great for the price through I2S. Unfortunately I'm not aware of something in between (yet!).
Hopefully this will be the way I'm heading at. As long as it is possible, of course. Still, it might be wise to wait a little more as digital gear is evolving a lot lately and I expect new DACs with I2S inputs in the near future (perhaps a bit of wishful thinking here).
