Jim Lesurf wrote:

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.

You missed out a few points.

Firstly, that means you need a DAC. If someone chooses a CD Player that
comes in the box already, so saves the user from needing another box, with
yet more PSU, metalwork, etc.

I was asking about it from the point of view of the manufacturers, or at
least, as a viable technical solution, rather than from the point of
view of the consumer. Sorry, that wasn't very clear.

Clearly, the discerning hi-fi consumer will buy whatever seems to work
for them at the right price.

But, why do the manufacturers design and build CD players the way they
do?

From the point of view of creating a device from available componentry,
and then perhaps putting it on the market to compete against other
high-quality CD-playing devices, it's:

* very cheap to get all the data off a CD into RAM or another buffer
* very cheap to feed that data into a DAC with exquisite timing

The cheapest CDROM drive has to scrape every bit off a disc in order to
function as a reliable device for digital storage of software and data.
Presumably it can do just the same job for a music CD.

It might be cool to design a CD player with a solid, weighty chassis and
aerospace-grade bearings - but if the job of getting data off it can be
done as effectively by a transport + reader + data interface that costs
peanuts, why spend money doing that when it could be spent where it
would make more difference (a better DAC, a better control interface, a
better PSU)?

It's still not clear to me whether I'm missing something about how CD
audio actually works, or whether the CD player as we've known it for the
last 30+ years is an anachronism.

Daniele