My two cents, not sure I'd recomend anyone to sink any coin into a new CD player, abesnt a deal that's just too good to pass up. I never expect to buy another one, at any rate. Now, you don't have to go and rip all of your CD's to disk and go that route -- but if you have a nice DAC, you always CAN down that road, you know, down the road. These days, the "transport end" can mean a lot of different things, many of which are in fact wildly more convenient than a CD player while retaining the potential (done right) to sound at least as good or better. Put differently, a DAC keeps your options open on the transport end, while a CD player will always be a CD player.
That said, and I am in fact wildly speculating here, expect that it'd be easier (ie, cheaper) to get your hands on a real nice CD player these days for exactly the same reasons -- more and more folks seem to be going the compu-route. Don't think I can address the which might sounds better question, just too many variables, but I'd go (went, in fact) DAC just for the future-proofing / flexibility issue. And that plus the price of a cup of coffe will get you exactly one cup of coffe....
That said, and I am in fact wildly speculating here, expect that it'd be easier (ie, cheaper) to get your hands on a real nice CD player these days for exactly the same reasons -- more and more folks seem to be going the compu-route. Don't think I can address the which might sounds better question, just too many variables, but I'd go (went, in fact) DAC just for the future-proofing / flexibility issue. And that plus the price of a cup of coffe will get you exactly one cup of coffe....