Lol. Funny you asked - well yes I do! And only because it sounds fantastic (subjectively, no dbt). No I don't think there's anything special about CD players that would make them sound better than a dac. If my dac did everything I wanted, I would simply toss the CD player.
I use a Denon DCD 660 from the early 90's or was it late 80's? Anyway, it was $5 at a garage sale. I put it on expecting it to sound like crap compared to my DC-1 and to my surprise that wasn't even slightly the case. Imagine my shock. I had heard plenty of delta sigma dacs from the 90's and early 2000's and the DC-1 was a long distance from those early (crap) DS DACs.
So what made this old CD player sound fantastic?
(note: Huge assuptions and conjecture ahead!
)
After some digging I found that it used a multibit DAC unit a PCM 61. Old school stuff that came before the Delta Sigma revolution. Comparatively my DC-1 has a bit more detail in some cases not to mention significantly better measurements. But the PCM 61 simply sounds bigger, and more dynamic. Jazz, drums, piano. Fantastic stuff. There's really not much to criticize at all. More importantly anybody listening to it and a DS CD player solution of the 90's would easily give the nod to the Dennon imo.
So it is in my system. Yes the tray sticks and needs to be helped out. And the remote is MIA. And the display is now starting to flash.
But it will stay till I find a replacement that produces that kind of sound. If my experience with the Gungnir multibit dac is anything to go by, the Schiit Ygdrassil will tick my boxes. Especially if it comes with a REMOTE!
Or I will buy the PCM 63 version of the Denon DCD660 and be perfectly happy