Jim Lesurf wrote:

Now that the contents of a CD can be held in RAM, never mind in other
cheaper and still very fast digital storage, what does an expensive CD
player offer that a cheap transport and a decent digital-to-analog
converter cannot?

It plays a CD. Useful for people that have them and either can't, or don't,
want to have to rip them all, etc. Given this, up to them to decide which
one they prefer, I assume.

If DAC products can buffer seconds' or even minutes' worth of data, and
can stream it out to the actual DAC circuitry with GHz precision, there
doesn't seem to be much need any more for costly CD players.

Am I missing something?

That 'DAC' and 'CD Player' aren't synonyms? :-)

I don't think you understand my question.

You can play a CD perfectly well in a very cheap transport; all you need
to do is stream the data to a DAC, and as long as you have a buffer
(cheap) that can ensure the bits arrive without timing irregularities
(also cheap), you have something that's limited only by the quality of
the DAC.

I'm not comparing DACs and CD players. I'm asking what *expensive* CD
players are supposed to offer.

Daniele