Can a PC match the quality of the best CD players?

Thank you all for your input. I understand the points about jitter, the need for an external DAC, and data being read from a hard drive being more accurate than data being read from a CD. Thank you Audioengr for the extremely informative Empirical Audio link.

Okay, so let's say for argument's sake that by following some of the tweaks in the replies above, and for the reasons stated in the Empirical link, by reducing jitter, that a computer has the potential to be better than a $5K CD player. But what about all of the non-audiophile hardware making up a computer?

Is the $100 Plextor CD burner I buy (not for playback, but necessary for reading CDs to get them into the computer) as good as the transport/laser in a $5K CD player? Surely this element is key as it is the 1st step where any sort of audio data copying/transmission - and the chance for errors - takes place.

And what about power supply? AFAIK the best PS for a computer doesn't cost much more than $100-$150 (Enermax, Antec). And if people are willing to spend 10 times that for an audiophile grade power cord going to their $5K Cd player, I have to assume that the PS in that CD player has got to be "better" (I guess that means in terms of noise and stable current output) than a $100 Antec. Is anybody out there using audiophile PS chords with their computer?

In a $5K Cd player, every component (PS, wire, solder point, circuit, transistor, etc., etc.) is (in theory anyway) maximized to the best that it can be in order to do ONE thing: reproduce music in the most accurate way possible. Doesn't it seem then that by using computer hardware components not designed with audiophile goals in mind, that the hardware of a computer is hampering (at least minimally and perhaps drastically) its'audiophile potential???

Actually, you don't need a burner to read CDs... ;)

The issue here is that if you proceed like some have recommended, *everything* behind the USB cord is isolated from the audio chain and--unless your computer is so bad it blows the buffering for the serial output or can't keep up with reading--will not affect the audio quality.

And, there are folks--like audioengr--who do audiophile mods for USB devices.

Semi:

I have the Wadia 861b, which doesn't have the digital I/O boards. When I got the "b" model a couple of years ago, it was at Steve Huntley's (GNSC) suggesion because he is of the opinion that having the digital boards hooked up has a "slight" negative impact on sound quality, so he recommends not having them.

I considered installing them when I started experimenting with a computer based system, but have decided for now to try different outboard DACs. I may still put the I/Os in the Wadia, but that will be more of a last resort because I am very reluctant to do anything that will be a step backward in the Wadia's sound, no matter how slight.

I'm likely going to try a Benchmark DAC1 next. Then I may try some mods on the Bel Canto.

Don't get me wrong, the Bel Canto actually does sound pretty darn good, and it may be unfair to compare it to the GNSC modded Wadia.

Ok you lost me there Edesilva, how do I get my CD data to the hard drive without 1st ripping it from a burner/reader?? I guess you must mean that it doesn't have to be a "burner" only a reader, but does a consumer grade cd rom drive perform as well as an audiophile transport for reading? And during the initial rip, and perhaps even during the hard drive playback, doesn't the power supply come into play?

Sorry, a CD burner is the lingo used to describe a drive that "burns" CD blanks--i.e., writes to them. To rip a CD, you need a CD reader.

A CD transport gets to read the data on a CD once and, even if there is some buffering, the bits read off the CD are basically what goes to the DAC. So, a transport is subject to the vagaries of power supplies, glitches, whatever. The disk has to be spun precisely, because it just gets one chance.

On the other hand, the software that controls a CD reader on a computer can tell the reader to read the same block of data over and over again. A good ripper--like EAC--does that and compares the data it gets, over and over again, until it is statistically satisfied that the copy created is a complete and accurate duplicate of what is on the CD. Because a computer can read the data created off a hard driver--where much more sophisticated error correction can be employed--timing sort of ceases to matter. The data is spit out asynchronously over USB--no timing information.

That is why I say everything behind the USB cable is irrelevant. The timing is supplied by the USB audio device, which buffers the data and outputs it based on its own clock.

To give you a very concrete example, I've got several "unplayable" CDs--stuff that won't read in my DV50S, my Theta David, my Sony SACD player... But, I can rip those with EAC and get a perfect set of .wav audio files off of it. Takes forever, and I wonder if replicating a bad CD is worth the wear and tear on a CD ROM that is basically running for 24 hours straight, but it works...