I Want to Build a Jukebox out of a PC

[captaincranky]

I have a pretty decent home theater system, completely separate from any computer.I'm currently driving it from DVD/Blu-ray, and a CD changer

I have two "spare PCs", One .an old XP dual core Pentium (E-2200), G-31 micro board.
The other, a Celeron 900 laptop, running Vista. So, it's SATA 2, and would benefit from an SSD upgrade.

I buy CDs, and rip them lossless, with Window Media Player. (I'm assuming they print back to CD with no difference in sound quality, at least I can hear any).

Either machine only has "line out" (headphones), and no SPDIF.

I'm wondering what anybody thinks, as to whether there would be any difference in sound quality between the sound driver in the laptop, and the Realtek audio in the XP desktop? Or would I need to buy an add-in sound card for the desktop, to get the CD quality I'm looking for.

I know somebody out there is thinking, "you're lazy, why not just try it". Well it does involve installing an SSD in the laptop, along with transferring a few hundred GB of files to both machines, just to put me in a position to A/B them.

All hints, speculations, experiences, wild guesses, and opinions, are welcomed, and appreciated.

CODA: I obviously would prefer to use the lappy if I could. It would boot like crazy, and take up 1/10 the space. An SSD in the XP box would be useless, since the machine is SATA 1, and running the HDDs as IDE.

 

[Crinkles]

If there's no noise in the system, I bet you'll be satisfied with the laptop. I used a pathetically weak and damaged Toshiba Satellite as a movie/music player for several years. I don't recall the cpu, it connected with a VGA to HDMI adapter and sent sound to a Yamaha receiver/amp's RCA jacks. Quality was on par with the speakers, 4 Cambridge Audio towers. It ran Media Player on the TV, so I clicked a playlist and let it run, that laptop never burped, had no errors and performed great, sound was flawless. I would still run it but there was a smoke fire in the fireplace that took out that entire wall.
I liked the setup, still have the drive on my desk, a Toshiba MQ01ABD075 750GB 5400 rpm SATA. Pretty good work from a cheap drive!

 

[Crinkles]

I have a pretty decent home theater system, completely separate from any computer.I'm currently driving it from DVD/Blu-ray, and a CD changer

I buy CDs, and rip them lossless, with Window Media Player. (I'm assuming they print back to CD with no difference in sound quality, at least I can hear any).

Either machine only has "line out" (headphones), and no SPDIF.

If you're around 60 you're not going to hear any difference, get an RCA from Headphones, Y splitter and plug it in. You know how to do this.

CODA: I obviously would prefer to use the lappy if I could. It would boot like crazy, and take up 1/10 the space. An SSD in the XP box would be useless, since the machine is SATA 1, and running the HDDs as IDE.

Use the laptop and donate the XP box, visitors will amaze!