balanced connection player

You could get a pro player or recorder (HHB, Tascam,Otari etc.) and upgrade it later with a better clock and converters like Apogee BigBen (clock)and Mini DAC which works on any sample-rate up to 192kHz.
(www.apogeedigital.com)
It'll go over your budget but you don't have to buy it all at once and the DAC will be future-proof for quite some time.

If you can find a used Classe CDP-10, I believe you would be a happy camper.

i ended up getting a thule player, thanks for all the info.