Best CD player under $2000

is Ric still working on Oppo's ? I have his modified Oppo Sonica and it's awesome...

Any chance a Dynaco CDV PRO with upgrades could be a nice unit and still have a good run? Or is a 25+- yr. old player not worth the effort?

Sparkler Audio makes a very good sounding nos CD player for about $1700.00. Sparklers designer is from 47 Labs and knows what he is doing. I have had mine for about a year and really like the sound.


http://sparkler-audio.com/portfolio/S503_en.html

Another thing to consider are dedicated Optical Drives, mainly used for ripping CDs, that will also play CDs when connected (usually by usb) to a DAC.  I experimented with an Apple Optical drive outputting into an Oppo 105, and the results were pretty close to to those obtained from just using the Oppo.
  Currently I am using the Bryston Optical Drive as a dedicated CD transport.  It has to be paired with a Bryston Streamer which then feeds into a separate DAC, so all of that would exceed the budget here, but for red book it does sound a bit better-mainly low level detail retrieval, particularly in the bass—than my Oppo as a transport into the same DAC.  Melco  makes an Optical player that can be played directly into a DAC for around $1500.  The biggest issue with the Bryston is that mechanical grinding noise that rippers make, which occurs at the end of tracks.  Not a big deal if I am listening a a Bruckner Symphony whereeach track might be 30 minutes, but if I’m listening to an album of Chopin Mazurkas that are each 90 seconds in duration it’s more noticeable.