Hi Jim.
I agree with the notion of the importance of the transport. I made a similar discovery, but it was only after I upgraded my DAC and listened to it long enough to really understand it.
It's probably the same situation for most of us: It's way easier to hear differences in DACs than transports, and it makes sense to buy the DAC that sounds right to your ears. After that you start to question what's feeding your DAC, and if you can squeeze more out of it. Well, that was my experience, anyway.
I used to use my HHB Burn-it as my digital transport. I had a decent digital cable connecting it to my Audio Note DAC and all was fine. Then one day, I borrowed an Audio Note CD transport for the weekend to see if I could hear any improvement. I honestly was not expecting too much. I was shocked at just how much low level information I was not hearing with the HHB. Little things like reverb tails on individual instrument tracks, timing cues, and even pitch suddenly became obvious. It sounded more like the master tape and less like a copy of it. I am a big believer now that the transport makes a significant difference. I'm sure that there are a lot of good transports for sale out there too, so I'm not just promoting the one that I tried. In fact, I always have my eye out for the next big advancement in CD playback.
Anyway, after I bought the transport it was also easier for me to hear differences between digital cables. When I used the HHB I couldn't really hear significant differences when swapping digital cables. Now I can, although that doesn't seem to make as much difference as the transport itself.
I also think that right now, a really good CD transport sounds much better than ripping the CD to a computer and playing it back that way. I think we are still learning how to get the music off the disc and it pays to keep your mind open to all possibilities.
