Tbadder,
I also own a pair of Quad 12L Actives. Currently I'm using them with an Oppo DV-970H which has the level-2 mods from EVS. All of the Oppos have variable volume control, but the VC is in the digital domain instead of the analog domain. At very low volume, it does lose some resolution, however I don't really notice it in my system.
I really liked the Quad 99-CDP. For some reason I preferred it to the Quad 99-CDP2, but my system was a bit different when I used the two different Quad CD players, so I can't really say what the difference was.
There are a couple of nice players currently on AudiogoN which have variable volume control. I'd really like to try the Granite Audio CD-657 (variable volume pot on top, back of unit, not remote controlled volume) and the Raysonic CD-168. I'm curious about both, but don't have the available funds to jump on either of them right now.
I would also hardily recommend an Oppo player with mods from EVS. Ric does great work and his product is exceptional. The Oppos also are universal players so they offer a lot of additional functionality such as SACD, DVD-A and DVD video playback.
BTW, I did a couple of simple searches and didn't find many of the similar threads that I had expected. Take a look at my old threads in the digital forum and you'll see several similar threads in which I participated. Here's a link:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr_memb.pl?actgddgtl&1&listflup&zzReubentEnjoy,
TIC