help a Die hard ANALOG guy choose a budget CDP

@audiofreak32 Okay, consider yourself defied ;-)

IHME, I heard a difference as did plenty of visitors here and none of us claim golden ears. But I agree with you that if that changing the file storage to NAS is your only change it wouldn't be a great value investment.
The bigger difference vs. just changing from external local HDD(via Firewire to Mac) and NAS via ethernet(CAT6A) was getting rid of the Mac(running A+ or Amarra) completely and replacing with a microRendu with a good linear power supply. The digital source can make a critical difference and the better your DAC, the more you will likely appreciate it.
1)Running a lower powered device with cleaner power
2) less process intensive Linux O/S not fighting against many non-audio related processes that run on typical PCs & Macs
3) elimination of disk drive in the listening room (especially if not solid state drive)
4) optical isolation between NAS & audio analog components all improve the sound in most cases.
5) Regen technology and optimized USB output vs. full function computers
All these result in sonic improvements that result in more believable digital music. This stuff is discussed elsewhere in greater detail, Cheers,
Spencer

Lots more work/cost for not much benefit...

I'll be the outlier here.  I've dabbled in Computer Audio, and currently use a Bluesound whole home system.  I still get my greatest enjoyment from popping a disc into a transport, sending it to a DAC, and enjoy!  No operating system hassles, no Drm issues...and my DAC is agnostic about inputs...hard drives and spinning discs sound equally great .

My point is...

If someone is spending $XXX (say $4,000) total on a front end source...

There is NO WAY any CD player will touch a DAC at that same price.

I stopped spinning CDs about 6 years ago and never looked back... it has been proven to me time and time again by demonstration and in the transformation of friends' systems from CD to DAC.  Getting up to search for/change CDs is more time consuming than sitting in a chair with an iPad with access to 25,000 songs at your fingertip.

First things first: audition Naim budget CD player if u can: CD5 or used CD3, these should go for under a thou. My CDS3 or my older CDX cannot beat my Keel-ed Sondek/Aro but they do sound "alive" playing CDs...
ripping my collection of a few thousand classical CDs did not work out for me: all the copies of the 9th ended into one folder and its a full-time job to rename tags as No.9, No9, #9, etc...plus with all new boxes ($1 per CD) coming up I do need a CD player... For pop musik a laptop and DAC should suffice, plus considering the amount of compression for the sake of winning the "loundness war" and all the butchering during mastering, even MP3 files sound as good as FLAC.
read the last chapter in Schiit Happened by Mike Moffat of Theta Digital: he left the industry when decent DACs became unavailable, Naim bought whatever was left out there in the early 90-ies, so if CD5 is HDCD- compatible, it should sound OK, otherwise a spinner and a decent DAC from, say, schiit, is your ticket..........