Oh, geeze. At the risk of over-simplifying, you of course use a DAC already. Its right there in your CD player. The issue really comes down to what kind of transport you want to read the digital bits off of whatever medium youre reading, and how that digital bitstream then gets sent off to your DAC. Whether you have the transport and DAC stages in the same box (i.e., in a CD player) or in separate boxes, youve gotta get this stuff done.
Now, I guess the question then becomes is there something inherently better about bouncing a laser off of a spinning CD verses reading the same digital information off of either a traditional (i.e., spinning) or solid state (i.e,. no moving parts) hard drive. No, there really isnt. We can just stipulate that all manner of factors (isolation, inertness, power, etc) can effect this process sure and that execution matters, but one isnt inherently better than the other. Put differently, both do just a fine job of disinterring digital data from a storage medium. (One could argue that SDD is in fact inherently more robust and inert, and thus better, but lets not for now.)
Right, then youve gotta send your digital bit stream to the DAC. In a CD player, it doesnt have that far to go, and it happens in the black box and thats that. You can do the same thing in a computer, in the same box, on the sound card they all have one. Or, because the on-board DAC in most computers is a crappy afterthought, you can bypass it and go direct digital to an off-board DAC. In stark contrast to whatever happens in your CD player you have near infinite control over how this gets done (OK, exaggeration, but you get the point). This gives you a degree of control over optimizing your sound that you will never, ever get from a CD player. If you want that, its good to have. If you dont want it, then who cares.
But, big-picture-wise, a computer-a-la-transport can very definitely sound as good or better than any given integrated CD player. Similarly, you can likely find a CD player that will sound as good or better than any given computer/DAC set-up. So and I really mean this sound quality should not be a factor in making this decision. Or, it doesnt need to be, at any rate. Not any more.
There are a whole bunch of other factors, however. Computer audio is not plug and play. It requires that you learn quite a bit to maximize, that you be comfortable learning it, and that you WANT to learn about it. If youre not interested, or frustrated, or just against playing with computers and solving issues as they come up because they will dont waste your time. It will likely bring you little joy. A plug and play CD player is just that, simple, easy and bullet-proof (figuratively, that is). What a computer-based system does give you, on the other hand, is vastly increased flexibility, customizability, and convenience (once youve crossed the barrier to entry and gotten up to speed, definitely not before). Having all your music instantly available at your fingertips, having access to orders-of-magnitude higher resolution material than you get from Redbook CD, and further being able to stream any music on earth instantly off of the internet, these things can fundamentally change your relationship to music. And thats a really big thing.
Dont get me wrong, if you want to spin disks to make music, I get it. The ritual, the mechanics, they matter a lot. Being deliberate and physically involved in the process unquestionably can enhance the experience. It forces you to live more fully in the moment, pay more attention. It is way more simple. And if youre into vinyl, theres no substitute. Revel in it. But if youre actually considering different digital transports, dont let sound quality be your deciding factor. Sure, there are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons not to bother with introducing computers into the process, but sound quality really isnt one of them. For me, the benefits so dwarf the costs that I wouldnt even consider going back to CDs (I still buy them, but they get ripped, backed up, and then never thought of again). But thats personal, and Im into that stuff. Anyway, Ive rambled on for too long. I suspect your instincts regarding which you would prefer to live with are unquestionably right, but one can get the sound they want either way.
