I would definitely go with a great CD transport with a strong power supply out to the best DAC you can afford. I owned a Cary Audio CD306SACD Pro. Fantastic sounding CD player but a bit problematic with the drawer. As equipment got better through the years it seemed a bit hard and dry sounding compared to new DAC’s, etc as years passed. When it got to where my server and DAC completely outperformed it I finally sold it. Now I just rip my CD’s to the drive and stream to the DAC. The 12V PC server uses JRiver with fidlizer with Windows. Also using the iFi Micro iUSB3.0 USB Audio Power Supply with an external USB HD plugged into it also. The sound is so much better from the WAV file then playing the straight CD.
And JRiver with JRemote on my phone makes it so relaxing to just load up a group of songs or whole albums on the server and just relax and listen.