Thanks Jafant, but I already owned the CD-7 and traded up to the CD-8. IMO, the CD-8 sounds better than the CD-7, probably because the CD-8 uses the newer Burr Brown 1796 PCM DAC. The CD-6 and CD-9 use a later version of the BB DAC ... the BB 1796A PCM and use it in some type of quad mono configuration, probably to handle the DAC side of the house.
As I mentioned above, I surmise that the bottleneck is NOT my CDP; instead it's the fair to poor quality of CDs. Sad irony is that many folks are bailing on redbook CD in favor of other digital media sources for the wrong reasons.
IMO, if folks are moving in another direction because of convenience ... that's ok by me. Who am I say say no.
But .. if folks are moving on because redbook CD is obsolete and just doesn't sound that good, there I take some exception. I don't think the problem is the technology. Instead, as stated above, it's fair to poor redbook CD recordings.
I've recently picked up some "Gold" quality hi-rez CDs -- WOW!! Buckle up and prepare to be impressed.