DACs: Airport Express vs waveterminal vs mini-dac

"I cannot tell the difference between this and a $2,000 cd player."

That's the question I've been trying to answer. Will a hard drive based system (hard drive, to Waveterminal, to quality DAC) sound as good or better than a quality disc player?

Too many variables here: is the standalone DAC better than the internal DAC of the CDP? Is the hard drive based system set up properly? Are the sound files on the hard drive ripped properly? Whether and how does the media player/OS re-mix the sound?

From those who did the comparison, as a transport, a properly set up hard drive based system can perform as well as a mega bucks transport. How the whole system sounds at the end depends on many other factors.

"How the whole system sounds at the end depends on many other factors."

That goes for any set up. Especially when using a stand alone DAC. I just wanted to know if it's possible.

The next question would be, can you do it dollar for dollar, or do you have to spend more $$ to get the same sound? I already have the laptop (iBook), so that's money I don't have to spend. I would just need a hard drive, a Waveterminal and a DAC. For the money I spent on the cd player, it seems like I could get a better sounding DAC. Then it's just a matter of a couple hundred bucks for a hard drive & Waveterminal.

Or am I missing something?

Dollar for dollar, you can't do better than hard drive based transport.

Don't know much about the Mac world. Perhaps someone can shed some lights on the particulars in the Mac world, such as how to get bit-perfect digital stream out of a Mac.

The only other thing is whether the noise level from your laptop and hard drive can become a factor.

I would be using iTunes with full size files. I've considered getting a Mac Mini to run everything.

What else do I need to know?