Looking for a CD player

+1 soix. I would purchase a DAC. $1500 can purchase a very good one. 

I own the Audio Mirror Tubadour III DAC. It is R2R with a tube output stage. Basic model sells for $1500. In stock form it is very good. It can be upgraded at a later date. USA made. Check out AM on this forum. I also use the Cambridge transport.

Gentlemen,
Thanks a lot for your feedback!Just to put some context to my research.
I am trying to improve the CD performance on all possible aspects.
On the AMC I put in a tube stage (lampizator style), ultra low noise v regulators, much larger caps on the supply and low noise shottky diodeds, external clock module, oscon caps around the DAC. 
I do not necessarily need a CD player per se, especially if I have to chose from units that are in many cases older than the current one.
So I am open to switch to transport + DAC which is definitely more flexible.In any case I would connect to my primaluna dialogue premium integrated, so no need for an embedded preamp.
Cheers - Fabrizio

MHDT DAC Tube R2R   i use this with my Emotiva ERC-4 and with streaming. not fatiguing, musical

Modwright mods upper-end DVD players to very good effect.  I'd contact them to see if they think there's anything currently available that would lend itself to your project.  

Couple other thoughts on this. I also use an Emotive ERC-4 cd player but normally use its AES/EBU outputs with appropriate 110 ohm cable using XLR connectors to great effect into my Holo Spring DAC. Effectively this outperforms by a substantial margin using a computer based music server via USB outputs either straight into the same DAC, or into a Singxer SU-1 converter which then can feed a multitude of different connections (AES, Coax, I2S, BNC) into the DAC. Again I much prefer the AES connection with this setup, but even that does not sound as good as ERC-4 to DAC via AES. For $600 this player is hard to beat.

Another transport that has not been mentioned is the NuPrime CDT-8 ($850.00) which is a transport only but receives outstanding praise. NuPrime has also released the CDT-10 this past year at double the price ± a bit which is said to be significantly better. Both units use the same Phillips transport as I understand it that the Jays Audio and the Denafrips Avatar use. 

As a final note, I have yet to hear a Coax connection perform or sound as good as an AES connection, and I've tried quite a few coax cables.