You must jump through a few hoops in order to get the SQ that you need to beat your CD player. That's right not just match, but BEAT.
And same applies to a CD transport; you must jump through a few hoops in order to BEAT any computer audio currently available.
3) playback using Foobar with Kernel Streaming on PC or Amarra/Pure Music/Ayrewave on a Mac. Playback from memory and SSD is even better
IMO, the J. River Media Center with ASIO4ALL (on Win 7, 64bit) offers better audio quality compared to Foobar with KS and any Apple-based playback. Playing from memory makes things even worse.
Best,
Alex Peychev