It’s not just a CD player but a very good CD ripper. I have the Star and have not listened to one single physical CD playing. I rip everything I have to an attached SSD. The quality of the rips are claimed to be exact bit perfect copies and I cannot complain about the quality that comes out at all.
In all honesty early firmware had some issues where there ended up a small gap in a file every now and again but it seems that is solved. And it is sometimes (for me it was single digits in 100 discs) overly picky about not reading a CD that does not appear to be damaged or exhibit any CD rot at all. But aside from that I am very happy.
If you want to stick with the all in one solution and like the CD functionality, get the Star. The cash is not just for the CD functionality, you are almost doubling your RMS power as well.