i currently play cds on my laptop that feeds a pair of "powered" loudspeakers. its a temporary system !
(the laptop is a compaq presario cq57 purchased in 2012 so hardly the latest technology in computers !)
the laptop is connected to a pair of m audio av40 speakers (rrp £100) from the headphone out socket via a 10m long 3.5mm to phono cable that cost about £2 !
i've just ripped, for the first time ever, the latest album by autechre "sign" to my laptop and...it sounds better when i play the cd "live" in the laptops cd drive.
the ripped version sounds slightly mushy in comparison so basically not as good...
the point i'm making is that you might find that playing a cd via a dedicated cd player into your amplifier may sound "better" to you than a ripped copy on a hard disk player etc.
i'm not sure if this video is relevant but john darko seemed to prefer cd player playback too in this instance :-
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgmzh77KMCU