Lossless HD soln vs. nice CD player


Looking for a single box solution between $2500-5000, ideally between 2500-3500, willing to buy used in that price range.

Really torn between lossless type hard drive solution and a nice CD player. Some may call that an oxymoron or me just a moron. But the idea of not having to load CDs one by one is really appealing to me. And if the lossless is 98% as good as CD...

But are these hard drive solutions just a passing phase to something better down the track?

What is the direction the industry is turning?

Hard drive solution, like a McIntosh Labs Ms300 hard drive solution running the linux operating system to store lossless recordings

Or would a nice used Naim CDX2 or Ayre CX-7E be the ticket to return happiness to my system...and thereby me?

Any input would be most welcome.
nycjdc
The potential for Computer playback is much higher than for CD playback. It is just technically superior. You can even outperform most CD systems using computer audio. This white-paper explains why:
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue22/nugent.htm

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manuacturer
For me, the direction the industry is BluRay, with audio format high defination DSD and PCM 192/24.
I wait for better times!

Regards
Emilio Russo (Italy)