Dich, and ReignofChaos - I am getting a little confused as to what Dich is looking for.
I thought Dich was originally looking to use an inexpensive CD player to play regular Redbook audio CDs.
If he looking to play files converted to digital format such as FLAC, MP3 or such, media center is the only option. Another option is to connect an iPod through a iPod transport, route it through an external DAC, and then amplify it. The only issue is that iPod does not play FLAC files, though they are the best. At the same time , though there are other players with equally good capabilities, iPod has a huge market share and thus a number of accessories are available. Even leading companies such as Wadia have bowed to the market pressure and are releasing iPod readers such as Wadia's iTransport.
Of course Apple;s AIF is also supposed to be a good lossless format.
At least for home, A PC gives a much more elegant and simpler solution. It can play
any file, and a reasonably good sound card will suffice. Using a wireless solution such as the Squeezebox, you can get excellent music transferred to your DAC, and audio amplifier. Actually to keep the PC noise away, you can place the PC in a different room, and stream the data to your music system.
Yes, if you are using PC based data streaming, a good DAC will be of immense value. Actually you can also use the PC based CD drive to play your audio CDs. These drive are what - Rs. 2000? Connected to a Beresford DAC, you can get a excellent system for less than Rs.10,000.
Andre Wiethoff of Exact Audio Copy has created what I think is the world's best audio ripper. Using something like 20 sampling runs for each track, the software picks up the best of the lot for transferring to PC format. It does not care about the final format and you can store the music in any format of your choice.
He has used a number of CD drives, and in his web side, gives explanation of which ones are good. Please visit
Introduction � Exact Audio Copy for more details.