Creative Extreme Audio Sound Card (APE/FLAC) or a 2nd CD Player?

[kodreaming]

It seems there are quite a few old CD players flowing around in EBay. A lot of them are priced between $20 - $80.

I am just wondering do those old cd players beat my sound card (assume I play FLAC/APE) in terms of sound quality ?

Thanks...

[infinitesymphony]

It would depend on the particular CD player, but there's a good chance that you'd see an improvement, especially since the XtremeAudio is not a true X-Fi; it doesn't have the same DSP or DAC sections as the higher models.