The Radio Shack cd player that Sam Tellig used is an unusual product (for Radio Shack and the price) that used a cd-rom drive and is no longer available. It is not indicative of "consumer grade" cd players as a transport but will not outperform a high end dedicated transport, either. The quality of the transport, jitter reduction device and cables all make a difference. Getting it right took me a lot of trial and error-buy nothing w/o a right of return is the best advice I can give. I have had digital cables sound very different in different systems and price does not always determine what works best. Also, read some of the other threads on this subject to learn more.
Upsampling/Advice on Transport
After reading Sam Tellig's piece in the Feb. stereophile, I've decided that I want to take the plunge into upsampling via the MSB Link DAC. Unfortunately, my current CD player (Sonic Frontiers SFCD-1) doesn't have digital outputs, and so I will need to get a transport. His article implies that the quality of the transport is virtually irrelevant (he even used a Radio Shack portable and got the same results), because part of his suggested system is a Monarchy Audio Digital Interface Processor, which acts as a jitter reducer. So here is my question: in order to get the best sound, do I need to spring for an expensive transport, or will any consumer-grade CD player with digital outputs do the trick. Opinions?