Top 5 sounding cd player in the 1000-2000$ range

Rega Saturn
Modwright 999ES
Exemplar denon 2900
Cambridge 840c
Underwood modified Shanling
You should be able to find any of these used in your budget. I have heard or home auditioned all but the Cambridge and they are all very good redbook players.

After recently auditioning several CD players under $2500 and doing a lot of research (reading reviews, etc.), I would have to say that the Cambridge Audio Azur 840c (which is what I bought) is the best CD player I have heard for under $2500 (check out Robert Harley's excellent review in TAS). Also, I found the Marantz SA8001 to be an excellent performer and it's under $1000 (it got into "Recommended Components" under "A" in Stereophile's Recoomended Components too). It really shines as an SACD player but can also hold it's own with regular redbook CDs.

I had Cambridge Audio 840C in my system for a while. Although it really is fantastic, I heard this sheen or glare in the upper registers, and couldn't live with it. It's a very smooth player, though, and it may have been a lack of system synergy or what have you, but whatever. I was happy with the Playstation 1 for all this time, and still intend to keep it. Now I'm running Consonance CD120T Linear, which is bloody fantastic for the price (a little less than $1K); for my tastes, it's better than what I got out of 840C. I also LOVED Primare CD31, which could be had in Audiogon for around $1600-1700. Other than those players, I can't really think of others.

check out an old Meridian 508 series. very good, smooth presentation.