Older Cd Players vs. new ones

Interestingly, I just picked up a copy of Stereophile from 1986 on ebay and it has a shootout between cd vs. vinyl. It concludes that cd is vastly superior to the best vinyl available at the time. This is close to first generation cd they are talking about. So how can I now believe that new cd players are much better than older cd players when we keep hearing how horrible cd was back then from this same publication?

I have an Andromeda (Simaudio). It has the 1704uk chips as does my older Simaudio Eclipse. Andromeda is more dynamic. Eclipse still sounds very good. Andromeda increases dynamics, detail, residual grunge, and improves balance. Units reliable, expensive though. Pilips transport.

I also have Linn Karik Numerik. It sounds good too. 1994 vintage. I think it has the 1702 chipset. Less detail, dynamics, still has orchestral layering. I need to sell the Karik Numerik sometime. I think it is superior to current players above $1000. (It cost over $5000 originally).

When I replaced a 20 year old JVC CD player (still worked, made in Japan c1988, $300) with a Cambridge 640c (made in China 2008, $750), the improvement was not overwhelming. The CA was definitely better in every way, but not the leap I expected.

I think the reality is that while technology has raced ahead, build quality of the moving parts (transport, laser etc) has gone backwards with the move from away from Japanese precision to Chinese mass production.

While I don't pretend to have the depth of experience or knowledge of dacs and transports recently I came across a Yamaha CD-1. I believe a cdp is more than super dacs and processing power. That's only a small part of the whole. 
Having had a few CD players in my time I can attest to this cdp sweetness and clean play back without the sterilization that some have. 
Taken to the extreme look at today's cheap blue ray players. The CD spins so fast one can feel the vibration throughout the plastic housing. 
There's something to be said about adding mass to a cdp and separation of components. 
So maybe one day I'll have a shootout between this and Yamaha CD S3000 but for now I'm thoroughly happy with this gear. 
Cheers.