decent CD/SACD/DVD-A Player for 2 channel Audio on

If your going CD only it will be tough to beat an Arcam FMJ 23 or Arcam FMJ 33, both or which show up here time to time in the $1,000 range. I considered a universal as well but with over 400 CD's already owned went with the stand alone as NO universal in the $2,000 & under range came within shouting distance of the Arcam. Ultimately have ended up with the Ayre CX-7, but could happily live with either of the two Arcam units mentioned above. Good Luck!

I just pciked up a Musical Fidelity Xray V3 CD and the X10 Tube Output Stage Buffer. They were demos at my hifi shop. I have to say that I'm extremely happy.

I'd never heard of a tube buffrer and asked for it to be hooked in out of curiosity more than anything else. The difference was immediate, significant but subtle. Not sure how to describe it but the individual instruments and vocals popped out and became so much more distinct immediately. No increase in overall volume just greater depth and soundstage and "distinctness" (for lack of a better word). I was sensine ths various instruments in a way that I couldn't with any of the stand alone players on their own.

I spent a lot of time comparing the XRay and Tube Buffer against the Musical Fidelity A3.5 on it's own as well as the Arcam CD73. I found teh XRay and Tube Buffer much more musical. Theo others sounded very nice to my ear but somethign about the Tube Buffer Xray combo made it stand out.

The fact that they were good condition Demo's, fully warrantied and the price was heavily marked down helped a lot as well. Next step, replace the ATI 602's and get a pre-amp to replace the NAD 320BEE that's playing the role right now.

Mrgman, I think that you have chosen a wise strategy. It is better to really enjoy the majority of your music collection rather then compromise by expanding for the sake of formats that you won't use as often. I would look at Jolida JD100 w/ and w/o modifications, Musical Fidelity A5, and Berendsen players. Good luck.

Thanks for the responses. I've been mulling it over and feel that a dedicated CD player will better suit my needs. I have a Denon universal for my basement setup and can use it for my SACD/DVD-A content. The upstairs 2 channel setup that I'm discussing here will be fine with a CD only player as the vast majority of my music is CD and probably will remain that way for a long time. Sooooo... the question now is what sort of dedicated CD player would you recommend for 1000 to 1500+ CAD?

Some guy has a SD9100 for $150 on here that is a great unit ,and you could hotrod it with a superclock 3 and just use it as a transport and save some cash.
MMM

I have been quite pleased with the McCormack UDP1 that I bought about 2 years ago. I actually did a downgrade from a Krell DVD Standard. Although I am not a huge fan of Krell gear as I have had a bunch of it over the years and my tastes have moved me to more analogish type gear, the DVD Standard was a great piece after one finally got it set up. The video quality was superb, the best I've ever seen, as it should be for 8k. When I stepped down to the Mac the only real noticable jump down was the video quality which according to your needs may not mean anything. The mac is a very good universal that does all the formats you are looking for. Retail of 3500 but can be had a big discounts with a little work. I got mine new on the Gon for 2k.
Good Luck,
Jackaroe