In my opinion - a little bit of know-how and setup is involved but this is as good as digital audio gets:
take any recent, decently-powered desktop PC with quiet, cool-running chassis fans.
Install Windows 7. Install EAC Exact Audio Copy, use that to rip CDs to FLAC files with a log proving 100% bit-match to the digital on the CD. Install Foobar2000 or any other audio-player front end which supports WASAPI for bit-perfect audio playback. Ensure all sound effects, EQ, replaygain, etc is disabled. Set volume in player to 0dB.
If you are feeling especially careful, set the Foobar2000 -> preferences -> advanced -> playback -> full file buffering up to (Kb) value to a number greater than the size of any of your audio files. This will ensure that playback is entirely from RAM and if something happens during playback that makes excessive use of your HDD, it will have no impact audible or measurable, on the playback of your music.
Play these 100% bit-perfect FLAC tracks via WASAPI (rather than directsound).
Use USB or toslink or spdif digital to get the signal from your PC to the DAC of your choice, and it's good old analog from there.
This is absolute perfect source, true *exactly* to whatever arrangement of 1s and 0s were on the CD you ripped from. and I don't believe you can improve from this until the day comes that recording/mastering studios start putting out higher than 192KHz, 24-bit audio and we need better computer hardware to process it and output it unmolested to a DAC.
take any recent, decently-powered desktop PC with quiet, cool-running chassis fans.
Install Windows 7. Install EAC Exact Audio Copy, use that to rip CDs to FLAC files with a log proving 100% bit-match to the digital on the CD. Install Foobar2000 or any other audio-player front end which supports WASAPI for bit-perfect audio playback. Ensure all sound effects, EQ, replaygain, etc is disabled. Set volume in player to 0dB.
If you are feeling especially careful, set the Foobar2000 -> preferences -> advanced -> playback -> full file buffering up to (Kb) value to a number greater than the size of any of your audio files. This will ensure that playback is entirely from RAM and if something happens during playback that makes excessive use of your HDD, it will have no impact audible or measurable, on the playback of your music.
Play these 100% bit-perfect FLAC tracks via WASAPI (rather than directsound).
Use USB or toslink or spdif digital to get the signal from your PC to the DAC of your choice, and it's good old analog from there.
This is absolute perfect source, true *exactly* to whatever arrangement of 1s and 0s were on the CD you ripped from. and I don't believe you can improve from this until the day comes that recording/mastering studios start putting out higher than 192KHz, 24-bit audio and we need better computer hardware to process it and output it unmolested to a DAC.