Slot, tray, or top load?

I've own/owned all of them.  I prefer the top load of my CEC.  Never liked the slot load.  I was always afraid that it would somehow scratch a CD, (it never did), like my car CD player was prone to.

I agree that you do need extra clearance for the top loaders.

I had one top loader, the Rega Apollo.  It was a slow, finicky machine that rejected many discs as unreadable that played just fine on other players.  I have no idea if the top loading had anything to do with it, but I was glad when I got rid of it

+1 @nonoise 
the question was not about CD vs streaming.  No need to evangelise about the joys of streaming on an unrelated thread. 

Toploading for me, although a manual closing tray like Naim do, is a good compromise if you don’t want the CDP atop the rack. 

I brought up streaming as someone who was reluctant but who recently adopted streaming in the event the OP hadn’t thought much about it or what it might add to his/her listening enjoyment and how easy and painless it can be.  The OP can just disregard if they have no interest in streaming, but I don’t think bringing up other potential options an OP may not have considered is inappropriate in the least and can frequently be helpful and informative.  I know people have brought up solutions I hadn’t thought about in some of my posts and I greatly appreciated the information. 

That said, I’ve had three CD players/transports and all had front-loading drawer mechanisms.  Two of the three developed drawer problems so you can put me in the top-loading camp as well.  But even given my past experience, sound quality/characteristics would still be by far my overriding #1 priority. 

I have a vinyl rig too.  Do you want to tell me I should be streaming instead of spinning? lol