Need help with choosing a transport.

Oh, and edgy too, the California Delta -- harsh when listening to a string quartet, for instance.

Could be that the Delta really only shines with it's accompanying Alpha DAC? (which is all I've ever had it hooked up to ... the proverbial 'synergistic' match up)

Tonyptony and Casouza bring up some really good points above about avoiding a transport you can't get repaired in the future.

Oh, and I wish I could say I have a 'gear closet' where I stumble on forgotten things like transports! Must be nice :-) I love when I occasionally unearth something cool that I totally forgot I still had, but it's usually just the odd tube or cable something ....

Steveaustin, Well, I managed to find an improvement in the CAL Delta by flipping the phase switch on my TADAC and adjusting its "tubyness." I can live with it, for the time being at least. I think I'll wait for a CEC TL51X to come up used.

The Apollo just plain digs deeper into the music than the CAL Delta.

Pmboyd, I hope you will not mind if I jump in and ask my own related question here rather than start a new thread.

I'm also using a good DAC and feeding it largely from a headless Mac Mini server. But I still want to have easy-to-use, traditional CD playback in my system. I think my DAC (Bryston) will do a good job handling incoming jitter, so I'm not going to worry too much about sonics. My main criteria are human factors: I want a front loader with fast action, easy-access buttons, a good display, and a good remote. And it should be a workhorse. I think I'll be satisfied with a modest, mid-fi CD player so long as it meets these other requirements, but something like an Oppo DVD player does not (remote too busy, display too small, front panel too few controls).

Any suggestions? Would like to spend no more than $300-$400 used if I can.