Yes it can. In fact, we bought it because we needed something inexpensive to play cd's on our old stereo system. You just need traditional RCA cables; there are L and R audio outputs on the back. The only issue with playing audio cd's this way is that you won't see a display of which track is playing as it would have to be hooked up to a TV for display. However, you can use the remote to choose individual track or to skip forward or backward.