Aqua 'La Diva' ($9k) or Gryphon 'Ethos' ($39k) versus. Pro-Ject CD Box RS2 T ($3k)?

Why would you listen to CDs if you don't care about hearing an album as a complete work, instead of cherry-picking a few songs here and there? You have streaming and playlists for that, a vinyl/CD experience is the opposite of that. With physical formats, you take your time, like a good conversation with a friend. You don't say to them "please stop talking, I've heard the same story a hundred times and I want to talk about X that interests me more than your ramblings" do you? 

Throwing a tantrum and making everything about yourself like a child... It's clearly a feature that 99.9% of the people don't use and including it would make the transport more expensive for everyone else. I don't see why Pro Ject or Stream Unlimited would like to spend additional money to cater for a minuscule minority of an already minuscule market of audiophiles. 

And for transparency, I don't own the Pro Ject transport

My 2 cents

I do completely understand that individuals have their specific needs and programmability is a requirement for tommylion,  no problem.  I believe that Pro -Ject has probably concluded that it is a very low demand requested or utilized feature.

Charles 

@tommylion

Ignore the dismissive comment made above with respect to you settling for a midfi $1K player.

Aside from the options that Charles mentioned, I’ll offer another that has programmable functionality - Simaudio 260DT. I have this transport, it has Sim’s proprietary mechanism and software and to my ears it is a very nice compliment to my Mojo Audio EVO DAC. I use AES/XLR connection ; prefer it slightly to the SPDIF. Anyway, I have no idea how it sounds vis a vis the Project as I have not heard a Project in my system. Just offering it up as a possible consideration if you haven’t done so already as you explore your options. Good luck finding a transport that suits your overall requirements.

It is just frustrating from my perspective that Pro-Ject came so close to hitting a grand slam in terms of what I’m looking for in a CD transport, but then messed it up with an error or bad decision. Including track programming for those who want and appreciate it is a no-brainer, IMO. If it doesn’t impact sound quality, what's the downside?

Have a Look at Playback Design DACs,

I have owned the Aqua Formula and the La Diva, The Playback Designs Lower end model sounded better.

The Dream Series from Playback Design if your looking for forgetting about the Electronics and just listening to music.