wanting to take a digital step

It’s possible to stream Band’s Campout (Bandcamp) from a stand alone source at your budget. BUT, it’s probably too much work for you. Meanwhile just hook up your headphone jack to your stereo. Any further improvements to PC sound are not budget friendly (in terms of SQ gains/$.)  I know from years of experience.

Anyone who extolls PC SQ has not heard non PC SQ.

What’s the rest of the equipment in your system, and how are you currently getting music from your laptop to your stereo.  Lots of options here but need more details please. 

Judging by the rest of your system you should look to invest some money in your digital side. But to get you going.

You want to buy a DAC. Given your price range I recommend the best Schiit DAC you can afford. It sounds like right now you are using analog outputs from your Pc. To get any kind if decent sound you will need to use the digital outputs to an external DAC and then input the output from that into your system. This will make a huge improvement.

Long term you should look at a DAC like the Schiit Yggdrasil or better and an external streamer of equal value and the music coming through will start sounding more like your vinyl. But to get equal sound to your vinyl you will probably need to spend about 20% more than your average component cost (preamp, amp, TT) on both a streamer and DAC… if that is where you choose to go.

In general, Schiit audio produces products that are great budget components and compete with other components of twice their cost in terms of sound quality.

Don’t waste money on a CD player unless you are nostalgic about playing with physical media.

A cheap stand alone network player will sound better than a "DAC on a PC." My Schiit DAC did not last 3 years (on a PC), not repairable by them. What you really need is a used Bluesound 2i. After that and only after you will consider a better DAC for an upgrade.

Been there