Personal CD player evolution


To take a cue from the previous threads 'amp' & 'speaker' personal evolution, I bid you this question...

for me it was a Hitachi small black box circa 1983, bought from a Luskin's discount electronics store (I think I paid around $250), then...

-Yamaha COX-700U (1985 or so, still in use by my father)
-Carver ? model to match a Carver amp I had at the time
-Rega original Planet
-Cary 303/100
-Cary 306/200
128x128pehare
Magnavox(?) (implementation of well rated phillips) 1987

NEC 1990 (expensive and well built but sounded brittle)

Optimus 3400 1994

External DAC and tube smoother thing to Optimus 1996.

Sony XA20ES 1998
1) Sony boombox with a CD player (1989)
2) Sony Discman (1993) (this led to a solid move from cassette to CD's)
3) JVC CD player (part of my first "component" system with JVC receiver and PSB Alpha's) (1994)

...then comes University graduation, followed by full-time work and pay, which led to the next stream...

4) Marantz CC-3000 5-disc changer (2000)
5) Bel Canto DAC1 added (2002) (still using Marantz changer)
6) Meridian 506.24 (2004)
7) Ayre CX-7e (2008)

...and that should be it for quite a while now...I don't change components very often relative to most on these boards, but when I do, it's generally for clear improvements. The smallest improvement was Marantz/Bel Canto to Meridian - that was more of a sideways step compared to the rest, which were all easily audible changes. But the Bel Canto to Meridian change was caused by necessity - had to move overseas and didn't wanna bring the stereo equipment with me due to transport issues.
Denon dcd-500
Adcom gcd-600
NAD 522
Arcam 8SE
Philips 963SA
Philips SACD-1000
Sony SCD-333ES(stock then modded)
Sony SCD-9000ES
Marantz SA-11s2
Sony 101, first player imported to the U.S.

Sony 302 mkII

Sony 520ES

Audio Alchemy DDS

Sony X33ES

Pioneer PD 65

Sony DVP 9000ES SACD/DVD