@bkeske 

the jays is more than $1100-1300 and cant afford that at this time.

i dont know much about dac's to venture down that road.....and then have to look at connection between player and dac.

@innersound300 

The Rotel 1570, 1572 both very solid. 

I had a cdt6000, but returned it.  It just didn’t sound good in my system.  I was considering buying the latest iteration of Jay’s audio transport, but got sidetracked with upgrading my streamer and DAC.  I once again considered Jay’s, but decided to first try using a cheap Amazon cd drive and DBPoweramp to rip CDs to my streamer’s storage and the musical reproduction was greatly improved.  Currently, my CDs streamed approaches my analog and that is a major compliment.

One of the most common questions, here.

Search discussions.

Denon, Marantz, NAD, Rotel, Yamaha.

I went for Sony xa5400es, SACD/CD player. I found one with light use, i.e. less hours use of the laser, they do get weak after a lot of use.

My saga to find a new to me CD player, I went thru 9 different maker’s units, until I got, love, kept this one.

Surprisingly, they hold their value, selling for as much as when they were first introduced.

here’s a nice, lightly used one, right in your budget, $1,100.

Crutchfield still has info on old units

After preliminary top of the list from research, I asked for advice here:

Also, complete laser assemblies are available on ebay, some models, no parts at all.