The best CD Player for the money

Marantz SA8004. $999 list, available bundled with matching integrated amp PM8004 at a discount (and that amp is another giant killer). SA8004 does CD and SACD. It also has Toslink, co-ax, and USB inputs to make use of its excellent upconverting DAC. The noise floor on this unit is subterranean and the sound that comes out is very resolving, smooth, dynamic, and musically involving. And I say this as a vinyl junkie.

An Absolute Sound Jan 2012 digital product of the year, and rightly so.

Metralla, the Oppo BDP-105 may be the ticket. I suspect it will look and sound a lot like the 95, but it can also be used as a stand-alone DAC and has a lot better input connectivity options. (I never could figure out how to use the eSATA input in the 95).

BTW, in my installation, the fan has never come on.....fan noise has not been an issue for me. On the other hand, my DaySequerra MultiMerge 1 fan runs all the time and it's one of those hyperactive 1" diameter jobs. I am going to run a felt lined drain hose to the back of the little pecker, and out the rear of the equipment cabinet into another room.

The Oppo 103 comes out pretty soon, I suspect a modded 103 will be the cat's meow. In fact that's the plan.

I have been building High Fidelity systems for 35 years. I searched diligently for primarily a transport but found a very cost effective CD player. I use an outboard DAC / Jitterbug combo. I have to say however, the built DAC using the Advanced Analog Devices AD1955 DACs with 384X oversampling filter. Is an interesting change from my piggybacked(80bit) (4) stacked 2x2 PCM63P-K 20bit Burr-brown ladder DAC chips.
The CD I speak of is the Emotiva ERC-2 listing @ 449.00 includes a five year warranty.

I cannot fault this unit as either a Fine (although slot load) transport or a full CD player. They offer a 30 trial and truly no hassle return policy. Have one sent, I don't think you will send it back. I did not.
Steve

Best single box CD player for the money that I've auditioned is an Arcam CD23 FMJ. It uses the dCS ring dac and sounds spectacular.

Only reason I sold mine, was I bought an external dac, so no need for a fancy CD player, just needed a basic transport with SPDIF output.