Pehare, the Prima is a pretty good CDP. I owned one for 6 months while my Capitole was being serviced and destroyed in shipping on the way back to me. The Prima is an excellent CDP with the following understanding:
It excels with small performance recordings - this is the units greatest strength. 3-4 piece jazz, female vocals, small venues and the like are superb on this unit. If this is your listening preference, it is hard to beat this unit in this price range ($1,300-$1,500 for the latest version - which is what you want)
When you get into driving rock, large scale orchestra, large venue sound, the unit performs only average. It has a tendency to loose a lot of the focus demonstrated with the smaller performances. Here, this unit is just average in my opinion. If this is your primary listening, then I would not recommend this unit, there are others that do better in this area than the Prima.
Personally, since it sounds like you have tubes elsehwhere, I would not rule out a SS piece. A Wadia will add resolution, detail, focus and they are somewhat rolled off in the top end so they are not grainy - like an 830 (which I also owned). Benefit here is that may be be able to run this direct to your amps (check impedence matching though). If you get an "i" version, you could run another digital source into it as well. This may allow you to sell your preamp as well and still be happy (there are many threads on the adjustable volume control CDPs if this is an avenue you may want to consider - allowing you to sell the preamp as well).
Also, what about a CD2 from ARC?
I would also consider a Lector 7, which is pretty good too and the price has really dropped due to the dealer demo sales lately.
What are you selling your CD3 for? Do you have it listed already? Let me know via e-mail or this thread.
