Crazy to buy a 17 year old CD Player?

I found the CD3mkll to sound significantly better than the CD2

Thank you all for your time to respond.  I'm hearing from most that its best to move on...kind of thought so myself, just out of the loop for so long and not really sure what is up to the quality I'm used to .

Am open to suggestions on used equipment @ 5yrs old.  Again, max budget is @ $2000 - $2500.  As you can probably infer, I'm very old school with a preference toward analog.  That said I've got so many CDs it makes no sense to walk away from my very nice library.

There's a Ayre C-5xeMP Universal Disc Player listed right now for $2250. I'm not sure you could do any better under your budget.

What really separates the older, high-end CDPs from the newer ones is the improvement in DAC technology.

In order to future-proof any investment you make, I would suggest that you buy a decent older CDP (i.e. Primare, Rega, Hegel, Yamaha, etc.) and mate it with a newer external DAC (i.e. Denafrips. Lampizator, Ayre, Soekris,  etc.). But if you are only interested in CD playback (i.e. non-DSD), focus on R2R DACs (Denafrips,  Soekris, Holo, etc.).  

What is the advantage of R2R-based DACs for CD playback, you ask? An R2R DAC converts 16bit/44kHz  Redbook PCM bit perfectly (i.e. without any conversion or processing). When a PCM file is played on a single-bit Delta Sigma DAC (used in most DACs that support DSD), it has to convert the PCM to DSD in real time.     

I recently compared the DAC in my Esoteric DV-50Ss against my Gustard x20Pro DAC (new, $800), which is considerably newer technology. After level matching, I was unable to detect any difference in sound quality between the two.

Now, the DAC in the DV-50S would probably be easily beaten by a $3,500 external DAC, but I only paid $1,000 for the DV-50S in the first place, so I am more than happy with it.

What is the advantage of R2R-based DACs for CD playback, you ask?

Nodicnorm is correct, this is from MoJo Music which gives you the reason why a R2R Multibit coverters are better to do RedBook (pcm) with, than a dsd (delta sigma converter.

"When a PCM file is played on a DSD or Bit Stream (Delta Sigma) converter, the DAC chip has to convert the PCM to DSD in real time. This is one of the major reasons people claim DSD sounds better than PCM, when in fact, it is just that the chip in most modern single-bit (Delta Sigma) DACs do a poor job of decoding PCM."

The reason why I said to the OP to get the earlier ML no.39 than the later ML 390s. Also the Linn CD12 and Naim CD555 are great older units for RedBook replay. All these are still very pricey on the used market for a good un-molested one..

Cheers George