Ruminations On CD Players

The OP didn’t mention SACD, but I think the Denon flagship CD/SACD is in his price range.  I had just pulled an earlier version out of storage after several years and was pleasantly reminded of how good it is

@vonhelmholtz

A bit over a year ago I decided to take the 4K I was going to spend on a top transport and upgrade my streamer/server and I’m very happy with the results. My music is on an internal Aurender SSD and backed up to a Synology Raid network drive. CDs are in storage. All is controlled by my iPad.

Glad you’re happy with your set-up. I have no doubt it sounds excellent.  

I spend enough time and experience more than enough frustration as it is with my PC, smart-phone and various other digital devices with screens. Having a similar interface with my audio system holds absolutely zero appeal for me.

Call me a "dinosaur", a "nostalgist" or even a "nostalgic dinosaur"; I enjoy searching shelves for a CD, pulling it off the shelf, removing it from it’s case and placing it into my Jay’s. Perhaps there’s a ritual aspect to it -- I haven’t psychoanalyzed myself in this particular regard but it’s physical media for me!

Call me a "dinosaur", a "nostalgist" or even a "nostalgic dinosaur"; I enjoysearching shelves for a CD, pulling it off the shelf, removing it from it’s case and placing it into my Jay’s. Perhaps there’s a ritual aspect to it -- I haven’t psychoanalyzed myself in this particular regard but it’s physical media for me!

@stuartk Well, that’s fine if you enjoy the “ritual” and playing the same stuff over and over again.  But what you’re really missing out on more than anything else by not embracing streaming are the thousands upon thousands of new songs/albums you’d have access to (a lot of it in hi res BTW) for the price of just one new CD per month.  Finding and enjoying new music is infinitely more enjoyable than living Groundhog Day over and over. Once you experience discovering worlds of new music, going back and spinning the same CDs seems downright stifling and Neanderthal.  That’s been my experience anyway, and I very rarely spin a CD anymore and don’t miss it in the least.  But, to each his own. 

@soix 

+1 very true. You can do both. I still like to pull out a vinyl disk every week or two. But I listen to mostly new music the other 20 hours a week.

I have a Pioneer dv-48 elite CD/SACd player + Merason Frerot DAC. I can literally sing the praises of this combo. One of my close friends has the audiolab 6000 CDT+Merason Frerot DAC. Sound amazing. Well within the budget of you consider used.