[sittingmongoose]

There are ways to reduce jitter on the disc using a blue marker around the edge which allows for a better transfer. Then using better software than normal, you can read the cd better than any CD player normally could and then also encode it to digital better than a CD player can. I am also referring to ripping it lossless into wav. When you rip it lossless though it isn't truly lossless, there is loss in the transfer. And there is also loss when the CD player reads the original cd to play it through the CD player. My friends method reduces that loss significantly. It ends up bringing the sound stage to life and improving positioning.
Again I didn't think it would make an improvement because of what you said but it does.