New Transport? / Streamer? / CD Player?

@fuzztone,
you are the first Pro-Ject CD BOX RS2 owner I have come across who has not clearly heard an improvement with a linear power supply in place of the stock wall wart SMPS. That’s an interesting take. I have read and been told that indeed the sound is terrific with the SMPS but "clearly" improves with a LPS. further evidence that people just hear differently. The always present subjective element.

@facten,
Agree, quality of transport and digital cable absolutely matter. For some odd reason, there is the tendency (By some listeners) to treat these two vital factors as after thoughts. As though only the DAC matters, not true by a country mile!
Charles

CD transports versus digital servers/streamers has been debated endlessly. At the end of the day both sides have their faithful advocates because either can provide much satisfaction if done right. This rivals box speaker versus panel speaker or tube versus transistors. Never to be a consensus winner.
Charles

Sparkler Audio has a new CD player the S515 that has digital input and can be used as a dac. You will need to purchase a separate digital inter phase for a usb input if you want to go that route.

I'm very pleased with my single box S503, very natural and open sound.

http://www.sparkler-audio.com/portfolio/S515_en.html
Can be purchased here- https://www.vkmusic.ca/ 

OP

  I get the feeling from reading your post that you would be more comfortable staying with CDs and not going the streamer mode.  A few observations:
1) Regarding SQ, there is no inherent reason why streaming vs CD replay should vary in quality.  They both extract digital streams and feed them to a DAC.  If the equipment is good enough your CDs should sound the same whether they are spinning on a transport or residing on a computer drive.  There are a lot of threads here that debate this, but most people are comparing a $300 CD player vs a 5 K streamer, or vice versa.  Streaming is the hot technology now so there are more streamer choices out there than CD players.
2) CD replay tends to be easier.  Nothing beats pop in disc and hit play.  Of course, you need to physically do this, but since vinyl is your preferred playback media, apparently a little physical effort does not flummox you.  Streamers basically are computers and therefore subject to the same networking issues.  Did you ever have a printer that has always worked suddenly go off line for reasons that are no fault of your own?  Read these threads and you will find dozens of complaints about an update from the streamer company, or Apple/Google/Microsoft, suddenly rendering their collections inaccessible.
3)Otoh, once those CDs have been ripped to a streamer, and assuming that you don’t have the issues mentioned above, then the convenience issues are different.  It can be great (well, maybe not for your health) to sit on the sofa and use a tablet to pick your music.
You may enjoy it so much that you will add a streamer service and use it to play the music that you have on lp and not vinyl.

So here is what I am doing.  I bought the Melco N100 server/streamer.  It has a 2 TB HD.  I also bought their CD Ripper/CD
transport, the E 100, which wii both rip CDs or function as a transport for CD replay.  The E100 needs to be attached to the N100
in order to work, but it’s built like a tank, makes great rips, and sounds better than my Oppo 105 as a CD transport into the same DAC.  Total the cost around $3K.  The Melco has worked for me with less IT issues than other streamers that have passed through my system from Bluesound,Bryston,SHM, and Arcam.  Melco is also compatible with Tidal and Qobuz (and Roon) but not other services, at least at this time, AFAIK

If you like the sound of your dac, you might try to max out it’s attributes with footers, cables, etc. I found using a Symposium Svelte Shelf and Cardas woodblocks under my dac brought out significantly more of its positive qualities. Same with the CXC, but I used a corian shelf with 4 Vibrapods underneath the shelf, as the CXC has a weird bottom configuration. But if you’re trying to get it to sound as good as your analog, IMO you’re chasing the dragon. And I’m far from a digital hater.
Of course another route is to upgrade the transport and/or dac, but there’s no way to tell unless you listen. You might try one of the better dacs in the 5k range like the Bricasti or Rockna if they offer a home trial. But if you're not saying "holy crap, this is good!" within a couple of days after turning it on, I'd probably send it back. At double the price you should be hearing a huge improvement or it's not worth it.