Should you have access to better than Red Book audio files and actually want to hear them a full resolution, then the interface you use can make a huge difference. I am the ecstatic owner of a PS Audio Digital Link III. It dramatically showed me the vinyl fanatics are right about this: mass-market digital audio does sound harsh, etc. But a device like the DL3 makes clear the problem isn't the digital format.<br />
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The DL3 is advertised as supporting up to 24b/192kHz. But what they don't mention is that that's ONLY OVER S/PDIF. USB is limited to 16b/48kHz. This is a consequence of the TI/BB27xx USB DAC they're using to get S/PDIF from a USB source. The 27xx won't support high resolutions (probably because it wouldn't make a difference with the internal DAC anyway).<br />
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And getting high res data out of a computer over S/PDIF can be a challenge too. Even if the computer has a S/PDIF output, don't presume you're getting anything higher than 96kHz out. And maybe not even that. This is a challenge of both hardware and software. Your operating system may downsample the data in software before outputting it to S/PDIF and IT WON'T TELL YOU THAT IT HAS CHANGED THE DATA. Unless your DAC or AV receiver has a display that tells you what data is reaching it, there's really no simple way of knowing.<br />
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Sadly, these are the very early days for true high-res computer audio. I'm among those who nearly tore my hair out trying to figure out how to fix the audio dropouts over USB I was getting in Vista. Turns out the solution was relatively simple: I went back to XP.
