SB3 vs. Transporter with outboard DAC

[325xi]

I planned to get SB3 and use it with Lavry DA10 DAC. Recent introduction of Transporter messed up my plans a bit. New Transporter specs look highly promising, they claim to make a hard work done with regard to jitter handling. But I'm wondering how important may it be when used with DAC that has highly effective jitter reducing mechanism.
What do you think guys? SB3 is not bad at all as a digital source, Transporter seems to be much better, but costs nearly 7 times more. Can I justify it if only digital section will be used?

[ezkcdude]

You should not make the mistake of thinking jitter alone is the only factor to consider. Just as important, if not moreso, are the regulation and analog output stage.

[PhilNYC]

In my own personal experience with DACs that have re-clocking and jitter reduction designs, unless they are using a word-clock to control the transport, I've found that they are still sensitive to jitter. Even my reference DAC, the Dodson DA-218, which has state of the art buffering/re-clocking in its design, is affected by jitter from the transport; my understanding of this is that you're still using a Phase Lock Loop (PLL) to synchronize the DAC's clock with the transport's clock, and there is jitter inherently introduced into this kind of architecture if the clocks are not identical...and that re-clocking using yet another clock isn't going to remove all the jitter.

(disclaimer: I am far from being an expert on this topic, and what I've written is my understanding from explanations given to me from people whom I consider to be experts. It's entirely possible that my explanation isn't 100% accurate...!)

That said, the big question is whether you'd be able to hear the difference, and if so, whether its worth the price difference to you. The only way to really tell is to try...

And fwiw, when I receive my Transporter, I intend to use it mostly to drive my Dodson DAC...