My 5-disc DVD changer isn't cutting it anymore so I started looking for used CD jukeboxes (200+ CD changers) on eBay. My budget was $100. I won an auction for a Pioneer Elite for $45 but the seller sold the thing from under me. Frustrating.

So I started thinking about digitizing my CD collection and playing them through my laptop. I ripped all my CDs to an external hard drive in .wav format (uncompressed).

I picked up a XITEL Pro HiFi-Link for $80. The XITEL plugs into the USB port and outputs digital optical, digital coax, and analog. The nice thing: it comes with 30 feet of good quality optical, coax, and RCA cables. I think the cables alone are worth $80. I used the optical cable to connect to my 950 for the main zone and I also ran the analog cable so I could use the source on the 2nd zone (I was surprised to learn that 2nd zone is analog only on the 950). A USB cable connects to the laptop and I was done. No software to install unless you want 5.1 capability.

I did test where I queued up a track on my laptop and queued up the same track on my cd player. So now I could switch and compare, pretty quickly, between the laptop and the original CD. This wasn't double-blind or anything but I really could not hear a difference between the two sources. It's a keeper!