First things first: audition Naim budget CD player if u can: CD5 or used CD3, these should go for under a thou. My CDS3 or my older CDX cannot beat my Keel-ed Sondek/Aro but they do sound "alive" playing CDs...
ripping my collection of a few thousand classical CDs did not work out for me: all the copies of the 9th ended into one folder and its a full-time job to rename tags as No.9, No9, #9, etc...plus with all new boxes ($1 per CD) coming up I do need a CD player... For pop musik a laptop and DAC should suffice, plus considering the amount of compression for the sake of winning the "loundness war" and all the butchering during mastering, even MP3 files sound as good as FLAC.
read the last chapter in Schiit Happened by Mike Moffat of Theta Digital: he left the industry when decent DACs became unavailable, Naim bought whatever was left out there in the early 90-ies, so if CD5 is HDCD- compatible, it should sound OK, otherwise a spinner and a decent DAC from, say, schiit, is your ticket..........
