It depends on the DVD player, but it will probably be better than any '86 CD player. Early mass market CD players (from the 80's) were almost universally terrible. Also, it really took until about '95 or so before audio companies started to really get a handle on jitter distortion and how to deal with it. This is especially true for lower priced units.
Not all newer DVD players will give good sound. I recently sold my "good" DVD player, a Denon DVD-2900 to make some money. I was intending to use my Panasonic DVD/Hard Disk Drive Player/Recorder (model DMR-E80H - a 2003 model) to play all music and DVD's in my downgraded system. What a mistake that was! The sound was TERRIBLE.
Luckily I had my old JVC DVD player (model XV-D2000 from 1997) sitting in storage. The sound from this unit is STILL incredible. This JVC was a second generation player - the first generation being the very first DVD players sold in this country. It was specifically designed to play music CD's well: it has separate video and digital circuitry and power supplies as well as anti-jitter circuitry. It sounded much better than a very well reviewed mid 90's Rotel CD player when I did a comparason. It also does better in some respects than the Denon DVD-2900. JVC stopped making quality units like this soon after I bought this one, or more likely, just stopped selling such quality units in the U.S. market.
Not all newer DVD players will give good sound. I recently sold my "good" DVD player, a Denon DVD-2900 to make some money. I was intending to use my Panasonic DVD/Hard Disk Drive Player/Recorder (model DMR-E80H - a 2003 model) to play all music and DVD's in my downgraded system. What a mistake that was! The sound was TERRIBLE.
Luckily I had my old JVC DVD player (model XV-D2000 from 1997) sitting in storage. The sound from this unit is STILL incredible. This JVC was a second generation player - the first generation being the very first DVD players sold in this country. It was specifically designed to play music CD's well: it has separate video and digital circuitry and power supplies as well as anti-jitter circuitry. It sounded much better than a very well reviewed mid 90's Rotel CD player when I did a comparason. It also does better in some respects than the Denon DVD-2900. JVC stopped making quality units like this soon after I bought this one, or more likely, just stopped selling such quality units in the U.S. market.