everything sounded great until the upgrade

grislybutter

One thing I wanted to mention as an ex-cd player person - I ripped all my cd to FLAC and now it is all on a USB drive.  This means you don't need a new CD player and it saves space.  Many streamers/dacs can play the digital files directly.  You can then also rip new cds as needed, or buy digital music song by song.  I liked this path because it preserves my existing collection and allowed me to phase into high res and single song purchases.  Something to think about if your CD is the problem and the money you would use for the CD player can be used for a file player dac or streamer.  I have been looking at hi fi rose, but it is expensive, but maybe other options exist.  Good luck. 

@12many 

That's a reasonable path, I find CDs becoming a pain, a clutter. Not that LPs don't take up space. So it doesn't matter where I store it, if it connects to a DAC, that's all I need?

@grislybutter

I am not sure about the equipment.  For a while I had a USB memory stick plugged into the back of an AV receiver.  I also use the USB output (from a computer) with a USB cable into a DAC and from the dac to the amp.  I am transitioning to a new system (I had old not great stuff before) and looking at the HIFI rose and liked that it would stream with Qobuz (sp?) and also could load my FLAC files into it somehow (now quite sure).  Thanks can be complicated now but my plan is go Streamer (to DAC inside streamer) to amp to speakers to try to be simple.  I have been saving for years.  

You don’t give much info. 
 

new electronics can take several weeks worth of continuous music playing to break in. Until break in completes sound can be thin compressed and lacking in warmth and bass. 
 

if you have passed the point of break it you may have a bad match. 

I'd agree with a lot of the comments here. Listen to it casually for several weeks to let the amp settle in and for you to get use to the sound. Then you can begin to decide on what needs improvement.

A good high quality DAC would solve your harsh CD sound. You could use your existing CD player as a transport if it has some kind of digital out (optical, coax, etc.)

Before I knew about DACs (circa last year), I thought that was just how all digital sources sounded - harsh and bright. Early this year, I bought a Chord Qutest DAC, and now the vinyl upgrades have taken a backseat to the digital upgrades.

Don't forgo high quality cables if you're going this route - not to trigger, cable deniers, but for me it was the difference between really good and transformative.

I hadn't plan to spend as much as I did, but after the fact I found it to be money well spent.