Does anyone out there NOT hear a difference in CD

It's all about your system and your hearing. You'll find dozens of skeptics over there on avsforum who firmly believe all CD players sound the same, and I don't doubt them when they say *they* can't hear difference. I don't really care, as long as *I* can hear the difference.

Fruff, I have mentioned this a few times before in other posts, the differences in digital under $1500 are subtle at best. To give you an idea, moving the speakers 6 inches in any direction changes the sound to a much much larger extent than switching from say a Marantz 8001 to the 840C. You will hear a difference by using a different player but I am not sure if it will be a *clear* improvement. For an obvious difference in sound, try a tube player like the jolida instead.

From what I read, a new player, especially one that costs $1600 (Cambridge 840c) and is an "upsampling" machine should sound considerably better than one from 1992 that cost $800. That is the year my pioneer elite was manufactured and it retailed for $800. If it doesnt' sound better, what is all the talk of advancements in digital technology? It makes me wonder if there really has been any significant improvements in digital sound? Maybe I should just keep the Elite until it stops working and forget about it.

if you're going to spend $1600, spend it on a used DAC. use your Elite as a transport. Or even buy a cheap DVD player and use that as a transport. Bel Canto DAC3 is awesome and can be had for around that much used. Besides, you also get multiple digital inputs on the DAC3, so you can use a transport into it, a laptop or Squeezebox or whatever you have/will have. Flexibility of a DAC like DAC3 is hard to beat. Most likely it will be better than that Cambridge player you're considering.

should sound considerably better than one from 1992 that cost $800.

You can't be that sure, however, CD players did indeed improve in general around the early 90's with delta sigma DAC's and oversampling becoming widespread. (Principally Higher speed circuits with higher sample rates are what you get with a modern player - you can approach 120 db+ dynamic range on the most recent delta sigma chips but remember your speakers are unlikely to have more than 60 db dynamic range above the noise floor - so do you need it?)

IMHO, the quality of ordinary players was very good by 1995. Your Pioneer uses an early Delta Sigma 1 bit DAC. These DAC designs are very linear as well as low cost because they are easy to make - the higher speed designs push the out of band noise way way high and allow for less brick wall filtering.

Any player before 1990 and I would be worried about Jitter - it was less understood in those days.

Now only a few Resistor ladder multi-bit DAC's have survived - this is because Delta Sigma's specifications have largely caught up with them in terms of the highest specs.