Ripping CUE/BIN with a tool like the now-venerable Brasero(found in every Linux distro) is basically the correct option, with the caveat being that it doesn't result in an easily mounted image for use in emulators etc.

To make the CD audio playable requires a second emulation step to read a CUE/BIN as if it were actually a CD-ROM and not a random-access byte buffer, and when I went looking recently, that precise use-case isn't well-supported, because it becomes a thicket of driver interfaces - instead burning a new CD is still the simplest way to get the result.

However you can still extract an ISO from the first track and play the result without the audio, as with the rips you've already discovered.