Best CD player now made.

The Wadia 861se now sets the performance benchmark for $10K or under CDPs, at this date.

Sorry resolution audio gang. I replaced my 55 with the Electrocompaniet emc-1 mk2 and there is no contest.

Few people are really qualified to make a sound statement like that. Personally, I am not. I have listened to only few other high-end players (top Wadias, top NAIMs, Audio Research, few others) attached to different electronics/speakers and in various locations. Finally, I bought the Accuphase SACD/CD DP-85, I am very happy with it and try to stay that way. Otherwise, the hunt for a "supposedly better player" will never end. It is indeed a great-sounding player, a pleasure to look at and a piece of state-of-art audio engineering. It has a build-in combination of upsampling/oversampling circuitry (a specific Accuphase brand which even very existence the company will NOT officially acknowledge). It really opens ears to the fact that CD recording quality varies tremendously and the best of them equal, if not even exceed (say JVC XRCD), a current SACD sound quality standard. Furthermore, the CD player alone will not make up for a mediocre speaker system, for example. Is it the best single-box CD player on the market? May be - may be not. It IS, for example, according to the German magazine AUDIO, which is as 'unbiased' audio magazine as the commercial publication of this sort could ever (afford to) be. Outside of Japan it is quite pricey, indicating a hefty surgarge imposed by the government together with distributors/dealers cut + transportation cost. In my opinion, there is at least a dozen of serious contenders for the title "the best CD player". If anything, a true comparison would be a formidable effort by aligning high-class "comparable/synergistic" electronics, identical mega $$$ speakers, double-blinded sessions in the same listening room, on reference quality software, and ... still verdict might be a very personal one. So I would advise to treat discussion like this as a good starting point to collect an initial list of player to audit for a search of YOUR best CD player.

I had to jump in, since there are about equal numbers voting for Meridian and Sony.

I traded my 506.20 for an SCD-777ES. If I had to pick one (for CD only!) definitely the Meridian, and it ain't a 508.24 or a 588 for that matter. Someone above said the Sony's don't convey the music - of course they do, but Meridian just does it better. I'd love to hear the Naim. And no, I would never spend 4k on a new 508.24 when I could get "good" sound for 500 bucks. The differences are subtle - re-read almost every CDP review anywhere where there's a comparison made -- it's in there, just look again -- they almost always say "the differences were subtle." Sometimes they guess at it (and even say so!).
And now MY 2 CENTS -- If you really want SOTA, spend 10K or more on some of the models suggested above and then sell it for half price next year to get the new SOTA. Otherwise, get a great used player (like the 777ES, Meridian, Linn models, etc etc), pay no more than 2k, and start spending more money on room correction - there's no better place for the money (assuming you can live with your speakers and electronics) at that point.

I think the AudioFunkadelic 9504, is by far the best, no contest !!!!!!