Best sounding CD player

@mbmi  - I was reacting to your comment that a $600 Audiolab transport coupled with a quality DAC will get you the equivalent of "+10K big boy" ; that hasn't been my  experience.  Folks understate the SQ impact of quality transports.  CEC is well known for the quality of its transports so I am not surprised by your listening experience. Enjoy!

i like my upsampling CD player i got 2 decades ago. i also like the apollo made by rega, a nice mellow-sounding unit that is a good match for the equally mellow-sounding brio-r amp. 

The Esoteric K01 XD is a superb player. Sound wise, it simply sounds more natural than anything else I've heard from standalone players.

I get the impression that Esoteric doesn't have as much market presence in the US as it has in Europe and Asia.

There are some extremely good ones eg Consonance, Audionet Planck, Edelweiss.

I love my McIntosh MVP871. To my ears it's very musical.