Sony jukebox CDP-CX400: Can it sound good?

I found the two ES series 400 Cd units to sound... really, really bad. straight up or via toslink to a Adcom DA700.
I was lucky to have purchased the unit at a local store with a moneyback guarantee. They let me even try a second one... sucked, big time. Grainy, digital (bad) sound. I use five-disc ES Sonys all the time and am happy with the top of the line ones. Of course the SACD 777ES I have is better as a redbook transport than anything else I have tried.
I agree that the transport does make a major difference.
Before I got the 55 lb Sony, I didn't think a transport could... but once I got the Sony behemoth, The Rotel sounded like cra.... I was almost embarassed to sell the Rotel! But I did like it before the Sony... so I did sell it.
You couldn't give me a 300/400/500 Sony unit for free, if I had to actually use it!
The last problem with the 400 CD units is access: When I wanted to play a CD in the 400 job, on my other CD player... it was difficult to retrieve.

Don't kill my buzz, Socrates! Now I'm gonna find myself trolling for transports.......

I tried the jukebox to a dac thing for a while ($500 Pioneer Elite player, various $1000-$2000 dacs) and thought it sounded good...that is, at least until I bought a cheap/used Theta dedicated transport, which completely outclassed the changer in every imaginable way. That's not an overstatement. I have found the transport to be at least as important as the dac, and often more so as it's harder to match up perfectly. Jukeboxes and the vast majority of DVD players make horrible transports in my experience, I'm sorry to say....

Follow-up. I just hooked up my Birdland Odeon Ag upsampling DAC (with re-clocker) to my Sony jukebox(es) and WOW! The improvement is dramatic. I feel like I'm hearing my CDs for the first time.

The 1s and 0sare not lo-fi, I run a 200 disc Sony CD changer via Toslink into a Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista-21 DAC and its great. Read the current issue of SF regarding this DAC.

Definitely - hook it up to a good DAC and I think you'll find the sound greatly improved. I agree - it's a lot of fun to put 400 CDs in one place and have the flexibility of playback. -Kirk