Thanks again, guys...As far as my gear goes to provide a very transparent picture of the recording, it's actually Bryan's fault that my system is currently as good as it is. He (and his accomplice, Glenn K) gave me all sorts of good advice about GIK room treatments, and now I have like 18 of them up in my room

Before that, I could hear some differences in gear when I'd swap things in and out, but after putting up the panels things became dialed in to a much greater degree

So now I'm almost walking on eggshells around my system (in a good way) cause I want to make sure whatever I bring into the mix continues to move things forward, you know? Money isn't a huge issue, but I definitely don't have the same level of flexibility that some of you guys do (something I'm very envious of, btw!) with regard to auditioning/swapping out gear.
I think that since it's an education every time I log on here, I'm going to pick up a SB (probably a Duet) to get familiar with it...then add a DAC...then reassess where I'm at. If I'm not happy, I'll send it out for mods and give that a go. By the way, are any of you guys using an upsampler?