Riffman, I don't want to belabor the obvious or insult you in any way, so please understand I'm coming at this question not having complete context.
I always understood that, if a CD player is hooked up to a receiver (or pre/pro) via a digital connection, that the DAC's in the receiver do all the work that could possibly impact sound quality. I mean, if the player is just spitting 1's and 0's to the receiver, how can one player sound different than another?
If, however, you are connecting the CD player to the receiver via an analog (RCA) connection, then you are listening to the DAC's in the CD player, and would certainly expect to hear differences between players.
Am I making sense? Helping at all?
