Warm and pleasing CDP - can be biased, colored

do you have a turntable to compare your cd player to? players differ but not in an incredibly dramatic way. your speakers have a bit to do with this.

Easy answer, Wadia... any model, I really like the pioneer stable plater models. Killer dynamics, big soundstage, huge output, bottom of the barrel bass. The most real sounding CD player I have found, but with anything I guess you could match it wrong and have a lean presentation, or digititis, but I think it is tuff to do!

I think Wadia is anything but warm

Asonicyouth, Possible the newer "Superbit" units they are not, but that is true with most of the oversampled, overrated, 24\96 units when it comes down to redbook. Its all on topology as to how simple they can make the unit, without using every new technology in the book and the analog stage must be done correctly to get the "Warm" sound, and believe me there are wadia units that would make you swear you were listening to Analog, not necessarily warm as in "tube" warm but neutral. This is in my experiance however, Hell I will vouch for the Reimyo 777 as a great player, but not worth 15,000, I chose wadia over it, but that all comes down to what sound you like and system synergy.

Timrhu, Actually, the Meridian 508.24 is a deal at $1400. It used to list for 4k new. My premise is to put your money into your source and speakers first. Thus the suggestion for the 508.24. Silvmoon's system says that his current cd player is $995. For just a little more cash, he could have a 4k player, which I'm actually suggesting for a replacement. If you do some research on Audiogon... "Best cd player for the money", you'll find that the Meridian 508.24 is mentioned more than any other cd player, at least up to about two years ago. (The posts go back to the year 2000.) Starting about 2 years ago, I noticed that alot of people were mentioning Sony cd players--- not sure of the model. At any rate, my .02 cents worth...