Best redbook player for under $1000

Another choice would be the Cary 303-100. A very good player and musical.

I would have to second the opinion of "Loudandclear", the Rega Apollo is a wonderful piece. I just received my unit for demo and have been burning it in for a few days. It's a beautifully detailed and musically fluid player. Something special is going on here and, to my ears, it easily beats anything I've heard under $1.5k thus far. I'm confident we'll be hearing alot about this player in the audio press over the next few months. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I believe Rega's Apollo is going to do for affordable cd playback what the Planar 3 did for affordable vinyl replay. Rega's even priced it less than their Planet 2000 : ) Stay tuned...
Happy Listening,
Robert at Audio Eden.

I would second the Eastsound E-5 CD Player - for under US$1,000, I believe this player offers fantastic value for money and has a tube like sound in the mid section.

Consonance CD-120 Linear.

I third the Eastsound CD-E5. It has replaced my Proceed CDD and Audio Note DAC1.1x combo. I use it with a Karan KA-i180 integrated and Merlin VSM-M speakers. It is very good!