Is this the END of DAYS for the high end CD player

One mans trash is another mans treasure. So, rip away and sell those discs!

One giant benefit that Jim Smith didn't mention was the access to radio stations from around the world. If you love CD's and never rip a CD to a hard drive, think of a computer like a tuner that can dial into literally thousands of radio stations: every college station, every public radio station, jazz stations from Paris, Madrid, Rio, San Fransisco, and on and on.

Regarding buying CD's: Sorry to hear about those having a hard time buying CD's but the thrift stores in my town are chock full of used discs. There is also a constant stream of people on Craigslist selling their collections as they rip them to their computer. This may be the benefit of living in a college town.

Neophyle: There are numerous ways to go with computer audio. My suggestion is go the path of least resistance as you start out and keep it simple. A mistake I made when I started was to complicate the process with multi zones with a NAS (network hard drive) and then an incompatible hard drive among other things. Forget all the wireless stuff for a while.

Start out with a mac mini and two harddrives. I chose OWC (http://www.macsales.com/) for the hard drives due to MAC centric technical service and warranty. A few more bucks but worth it to me. Probably a good place to buy the Mini as well. BTW, I bought mine on Craigslist for $300.

With regards to usb converters, usb cable, digital cables, and DAC... well... that's another thread but I suggest to go cheap at first and live with it for a while.

A couple observations on the comments above:
1. I don't understand why anyone would buy a music server when you can buy a mac mini and external hard drive with virtually unlimited storage capability for a fraction of the costs.
2, Computer based source doesn't mean that you have to buy your music online. It just means that you rip your cd's to the computer. The only music I buy online are the few songs here and there that my wife ask for. I haven't "bought" into the high rez downloads yet so i just stick with red book... at least for now.
3. The high end CD player won't go away, but, they will have a digital input.
4. I love my computer based source and the capability of controlling it with my Iphone is shear joy.

Having said all this, it's been my experience that computer based sources are a long way off from outperforming transport/cd players. If you can only listen to the highest quality in digital playback, then you need a transport whether separate or a one box solution.