The best CD Player for the money

Ritteri, I'm curious. What great souce components have you had in your system? What lower cost units work well w/ some tweaking and what higher cost units would you recommend?

I'm considering a CDP upgrade from an inexpensive Denon changer, and someone w/ mulitple unit experience I'd be interested in hearing some opinions from. Don't leave us hanging!

Thanks,
Hammergjh

I think there are alot of great CD players, and I mean dozens and dozens of them. Adcom,Arcam,CAL,Wadia,BAT,Meridian,Lynn etc etc. I have heard multiple units from alot of the listed companies and countless more. I personally love the Adcom GCD 750 for right around $1000. There are alot of small tweaks that can be done too to greatly improve this CD player. In fact I think the Adcom GCD and GFP 750 preamp makes a great front end combo, especially using the XLR input/outputs. You get true hi-fi products for minimal money invested.

This thread which started 3years ago shows evolving flavour
of the season changes in best bang cd playback units.Would
be interesting to keep it going to see what future trends
crop up.I believe one trend is SACD camp sees they must make sacd playback a standard inclusion on all players for that format to survive in hopes that eventually all owners of such units will want to give the higher rez media a spin.
I imagine DVD-A will be standard as well.Much like most HT receivers have all decoding schemes on board.Makers are
covering thier respective bets.

Have to agree with Ritten, my Wadia 301 is the best money
I spent on hi-fi gear. Through the whole musical scale, it's superb. Have to say, but, works better with a preamp.
Directly into an amp, you lose some weight in the music.
Go for balanced option to hear it at its best.

Markone: If you want to see the true potential of the 301, spend an extra $1600 through GNSC. Its performance will surpass a standard Wadia 861se. They perform alot of critical damping, rip out alot of unecessary circuits which actually degrade performance and add some critical components to maximise the design which is alot better than its $3650 price tag shows.