Mark Z said:

Let me put it this way:

1. Wouldn't you rather have a nice CD player than a piece of crap?

That depends. I want a CD player to play CD's without any audible
artifacts of an kind. If I can get that from a $69.00 player, then I'm
likely to buy a $69.00 player.

2. Don't you suppose there's at least a chance the better built CD
player
might sound better?

Not based on any empirical evidence. The average CD player
irrespective of price, is flat to something like .03dB.



3. Don't you suppose a high-quality external DAC might possibly sound
better
than the cheapest possible 1-chip DAC section of of the cheapest built
CD
players in the world (which is exactly what this Chinese stuff is, for
the
most part) ?

I would only suppose that if I didn't already know better. For what
the typical DAC costs, I could probably buy several CD players that
sound exactly like every other CDplayer not designed to deviate from
flat response.

I'd ratther save for new speakers or buy more music or DVD's than waste
it on something that at best is likely to not sound any different, and
at worst, provide technically inferior sound, by deviating from flat.