Yes, although if by "basic sound" you mean whether the same machine's sound *as a CD player* can be considered determinative, then I'm not sure how much correlation there is in that sense. But just in general, transports -- including players used as transports -- absolutely affect the overall sonic output of the DAC they're paired with. Personally I've never obtained as a good a result using a mass-market or mid-fi player as a transport vs. using a high-end dedicated transport, though I haven't tried the modding route. BTW, I've also found that using an anti-jitter box in-between doesn't narrow the performance gap.
cdp+outboard dac
when a cdp is used as a transport does the basic sound of the cdp effect the sound coming from the outboard dac?