Sound Quality: Computer vs. CD Player

I use a computer for mp3's and the kids music. I have tried many different cd-rom's with digital out an external DAC and they do not even come close to comparing to a good cd player. But then my main system is almost completly Cary.

Can anyone recommend a sound card for a compaq PC with spdif out?

Get a grip people.
Not even remotly close.
I will put my 10 year old Nikko thats in a third system up againt any computer.
Dont be fooled.
its the big lie all over again.Its like the hype lie we where fed 20 Years ago.REMEMBER PERFEXCT SOUND FOREVER.WAKE UP PEOPLE
ALL THE SHEEP GOT RID OF THEIR VINYL.
SHOULD WE NOT LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES.

Equa, if you intend to use the built in audio capabilities of the Mac to playback internet source music, then vitually any dedicated CD player will offer superior audio performance. Nearly all internet music downloads are heavily data compressed (MP3, for example) which definitely compromises sound quality. The internal Mac DAC is also not a high performer.

In my above 11/19 post I may have been unclear. I was referring to using a Mac computer as the center of a hard disk playback system. The CD-ROM mechanism is not used for audio playback. Instead the music is read directly from the hard disk. Effectively, the whole computer becomes the CD transport and when used with appropriate computer software, music can be sorted and played in ways unimaginable by conventional CD player based systems. Regarding sound quality, it is far superior to Natalie's Nikko and I suspect it equals or exceeds Lancel's Cary.

Onhwy61, what do you use to RIP your CD's onto your hard drive? Or do you just download the full WAV version off of the internet? A friend experiemented with this on his computer (6x100GB hard drives in JOB configuration) and we could never get upper level digital sound quality out of it. We always prefered listening on my Marantz 6000OSE. Never any bite to it (and he was using an MSB Link DAC Platinum for his computer). It just never sounded up to it's potential, and the hard drives cost TONS of money to install and cool. The convienience of it was always overshadowed by how long it took to RIP the disks and/or download. For Parties it's GREAT, but for regular listening, not so good. How did you get yours to sound so great! Cheers!