A question about music players

For some years now I've been playing music in roleplaying sessions with the help of a CD player. However, the last two (or maybe three) were cheap, didn't last very long and broke pretty quickly. I currently have no music player at all, but plenty of CDs (which get played on my PC).

So - what should I buy now? Should I purchase a new CD player (possibly something more expensive) or finally face the whole MP3 thing that I've been ignoring and buy an MP3 player? And, if the latter, what form (eg. speakers) given that I want to play music to a room? (Incidentally, recommendations that ignore products from that Jobs company are particularly appreciated.)