Talking about whether CD-ROM drives are truly accurate misses the point of computer based systems. The original question was about putting together a high end computer based system and if that's the case the CD-ROM is not important in playback since the music will be stored and played from the computer's hard disk. The role of the CD-ROM will be solely to rip the CDs to the hard disk. If properly setup, this type of computer/hard disk playback is of very high quality. Systems of this design are routinely used in recording and mastering studios.
As far as soundcards go, I recommend RME. It can be configured with optical (Toslink), RCA (SPDIF) or XLR (AES/EBU) digital I/O.
As far as soundcards go, I recommend RME. It can be configured with optical (Toslink), RCA (SPDIF) or XLR (AES/EBU) digital I/O.