The best CD Player for the money

Bud, I also noticed there are a pair of rare Marten Coltrane Alto standmounts up for sale on the 'Gon at the moment which I rate as better overall than the Q1's going for a bargain price of $9k. The Alto's were $24k when then last sold in 2006 & use a carbon/kevlar monocoque cabinet, so basically the best material you can buy. They also go lower than the Mini 2's and are not critical with room placement. Some audiophile is going to be happy.

Technically serving music via NAS over ethernet is the best solution so long as your renderer is optimized for that. But for a server transport running to an external dac, the best solution is twin AES/EBU cables like the Aurender W20.

If you're looking at the Romulus, take a few mins to have a read of Grannyring's system. He has done some pretty awesome mods on his player.

About four years ago I upgraded to the NAD Masters series components and was quite surprised at how the M5 SACD player made my regular "Redbook" CDs sound better, later learning something about the differences in DACs.

Last year I got on to Audiogon and snagged a McIntosh MCD500 (just before the MCD550 was introduced) and have been really happy with the new SACD player. The "eight channel" ESS DAC chips they use in those units sound very good, very smooth, yet extract so much detail from the source. I suspect the MCD550 sounds even better!

These units are quite "pricey", but if you snag a good, used model, you should be as happy as I am with mine, at a more reasonable price.

Melguy1!
Off goes the Romulus?!
Maybe a barrelstack of VCaps to change your mind? Just kidding, we all know
everything changes and "consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative." or, "the hobgoblin of small minds...."

@Budburma, yeah time for a change. The Romulus is amazing at it's price point. But I have a pretty special spinner waiting in the wings to replace it. Hint: it is made in Denmark!

Wish I could pick it up. I think that by the time it was shipped and converted I could almost buy a new one.
Danes don't lie. At least that's they say. I gues they could be lying about that though!
Let's see....
GamuT-nope, not that pricey
Bow...are they still extant?
Gryphon-Darth Vader stylin' high end...
Dali..Dynaudio, nope, speakers. Did Dynaudio move?
I'm out of ammo.

Have you ever considered MSB Technologies? Their technology looks pretty amazing.