Good one Mike!
as to transports and such....
One thing to be *warry* of is older transports may not like a lot of CD-Rs. Carl can only play about 1/3rd of his CDs due to his old parasound not liking them.
I have been VERY happy with the Musical Fidelity CD-PRE24, which is an SS preamp, transport and DAC right out of the tri-vista CD player (which is sweet, and sells for around $5k). I paid $1290 for it brand new. Replaced my tube pre, philips 963sa that I used as transport, and my smART DIO DAC, all in one box. Got to sell all that gear, two pairs of ICs and a digi cable. Paid for itself, and BLOWS my old setup AWAY !!
Cant stress enough the importance of a good front end. Its where the "crap in , crap out" rule starts.
actualy I guess it starts w/the listening material, but this is 2nd in line.
fwiw, I really like the Benchmark...but think it may be a tad bright sounding???