Hello everyone Sorry if I'm retreading old ground here - I've had a look thru the old posts and can't find the precise answer I'd like. Could someone help me out ??. I have a MkI DAC64 with a new Denon DVD-2900 as transport. I like the combination very much. I have nearly always used my DAC64 on the one-second buffer setting [the four second one sounds a little "slow" to me]. To be fair I haven't used the DAC with no buffer much at all, save for when I play DVDs through it, for obvious reasons - must have partly been down to all reviews/opinions saying that the DAC64 sounds ropey with no buffer, I suppose. When we were up at Definitive the other day though Kevin Scott told me that he'd used the DAC64 at various shows and in his opinion it sounded better with no buffer on. We switched the buffer on and off during a short dem and to tell you the truth I couldn't tell a lot of difference. Perhaps I have cloth ears. I'm using a optical cable between the Denon and DAC64 and it sounds to me thru my system as if there isn't much between the no buffer and buffered settings. Does anyone on the forum hear a huge difference between non-buffered and buffered ??. Should buffered AUTOMATICALLY sound better ??. If, as I understand, the buffered setting reduces the influence of transport/digital cables on the sound, does it mean that supports for the transport/"pure direct" transport modes [ie switching out video circuits] are of little or no use ??. Sorry for the long post. Paul