The only thing you'd gain would be less wear and tear on a more expensive multi-format player.
Assuming you're using the digital outs (TOSlink or SPDIF - or as they're otherwise known - digital optical and digital coaxial) - it's pretty tough to come up with sound quality reasons to go to a high-end player.
Again, a bit of perspective to help see through the hype - you're sitting in front of a computer with a CD-ROM drive - just did a quick search here... a 52x LG is about $30CDN - which, even considering it doesn't supply its own power or have a screen (add a few bucks for a transformer and LED readout to put it on par with a home audio component CDP) would still make it the cheapest possible alternative, almost laughable as to build quality. How often does a CD-ROM have a read error in data? Even a single misread bit would make an application go berzerk... say the difference between a PUSH opcode and a POP opcode. If the odd little putty-coloured drive beside your knee there is of high enough quality to read data that has to be bit perfect at 16x the rate that an audio CD is read at, what's the big concern about whether or not a $160 CDP can do its job?
Bren R.
