CD Sound Quality -- please help educate me

Saru, You are concerned with software sound quality?... yes. You have good taste in music?... yes. You know the names and model numbers of your components?... yes. You can spell, form proper sentences, and form paragraphs?... yes. (this last one is not an essential requirement, tho) The good news? You are in audiophile!! The bad news? You are an audiophile!! Enjoy

This was well before they discovered the deleterious effects of jitter.

You would indeed benefit by purchasing a well recommended used player that is not more than 5 years old.

Cambridge 540c used (from 2008) would be a good choice but there are many good players and the differences between one digital player and another are much much smaller than between one speaker and another.

Rule of thumb for high quality sound => invest most (for example half your budget) in speakers as they tend to perform very poorly compared to electronics - so usually this is where most of the distortion and coloration happens.

Get yerself an SACD player and a nice collection of SACDs.
I love SACD.

LoL, me, an audiophile? Well, I do enjoy listening to music but I'd hardly consider myself an audiophile (yet) in the ranks of folks on this forum any more than playing Need for Speed makes me a race car driver. :) I just know a few buzzwords.

So, if I understand the comments thus far, it does help to buy a 'current' CD player, not necessarily for 24/192 but to minimize things like jitter and for higher quality electronics - better data paths not necessarily data manipulation.

So, just taking an conceptual example: both a Marantz CD5400 (16/44?) as well as a Cambridge 540C (24/192) would be better than my Sony because of newer electronics and design, regardless of bit depth and sampling rate. And these units may be comparable as well (same generation).

Does your Sony have a digital out? If it is in good shape you may consider just buying a newer DAC and a digital cable.