Hi John!
-> > The quality of the ADC that is originally done is very important,
-> very > akin to the quality of the cartridge on the turntable is to
-> any quality > considerations downline.
-> Essentially, we again face the question of whether gear being better
-> at the
-> listeners end than at the recording end can possibly make any
-> difference, and if so, in what pieces.
 Hardly nothing is mastered to analog any longer, and it's getting to
the point that less and less is being tracked in analog, unless there is
a specific reason, like drums with tape saturation compression effects,
etc. What can be a problem is needless conversions to and from digital
to analog. Ideally, once transfered from analog to digital, it will
remain that way until getting to your DAC on your stereo.
 Assuming that the ADC was done cleanly without digital clipping and
that your equipment is clean then all should be well. I'm still trying
to figure out though what an Ant-jitter unit is going to be able to
accomplish!! Tell you that it is happening?
-> This makes too much sense. Nothing in life can be that simple (At
-> least
-> not my life). Although I have read several reviews of all in one CD
-> units under $400 that were given equal status with Mondo-multi-piece
-> CD units running many times their price. Nothing would make me
-> happier as I price the different units!

 I use both independent seperate units and integrated converters within
a piece of equipment, so far the only results that have been shaky have
been out of a cheap portable CD player. The ones in my TEAC
portable DAT machine seem to be clean, transparent, fairly flat in
response. Difficult to tell any difference between that and the
converter on my Spectral DAW which is far more expensive than the entire
DAT deck (18bit, 64X oversampling). This not to say that a DAC is a DAC,
but perhaps that the differences may be much less noticable per dollar
spent than somewhere else in the audio chain (speaker quality is usually
a good one to focus on, whereas an amp is more or less JUST an amp, if
you follow what I mean here).
-> Someday I would like to sit in on a recording session whether in a
-> studio
-> or at a live performance and observe the engineers put their
-> equipment through its' paces. I would then like to secure one of the
-> first available copies and play it at home to see just how close it
-> comes to the real thing.
Might be exciting, but is mostly boring to watch. Being able to listen
to the mix from the location and with the monitoring system actually
used to mix with, and then hearing it immediately on your own system can
be VERY enlightening, to show how accurate your home system is, and how
it uniquely colors the sound. Typically, studios use a number of
monitors other than the really expensive built-in tri-amped super
tweaked system in an ideal room mode, such as Auratones, to hear
what it will sound like on a typical cheap stereo (Auratone likes to
advertise that it is because of some kind of quality or something), and
others... If I was mixing for a drive-in theatre... I'd mix on one of
those 70 volt line speakers... what it would actually be played back
on.. the super control room system would be almost totally useless in
that situation. Yamaha NS-10's are often used for disco/rap/
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