best cd player for 300-500 bux

dude, weird. did you move your speakers? first thing I would check. are your speakers working correctly? try playing with speaker placement and toe-in.

the cdp will automatically bypass the internal dac if you use one of the digital outs -- coax or optical. it will prob have at least the coax out, most cdp's do.

thats the weird thing i didnt do anything. I just havent been messing with it that much since its drag racing season. My older psbs dont have any outriggers or spikes so i put my mapleshade plinths under them and that made things better but still no real 3d type sound. I even went and put in cable elevators just to make sure i wasnt getting something weird from my carpet and no luck. I tried toe in and straight. Reconnected all the analog wires. I dont know what gives. Could the tubes in my preamp need swapped out? any ideas would be great. Kevin

Tubes.

Here is another thing to think about. The DACs in the DACmagic are the same as in the Cambridge Audio 640C version 2 - "dual Differential Virtual Earth balanced filter topology and twin Wolfson WM8740 high quality DACs in dual differential mode for excellent stereo imaging" - according to Cambridge. Otherwise, the DacMagic is closer to somewhere between the Cambridge 640C and 740C CD players in terms of set up and performance.

But - you can probably get a used 640C version 2 CDP for between $300 and $400. You can then sell your NAD and buy a dandy used power cord for the Cambridge - which really makes a difference with this player. My guess is that the better jitter specs of the 640C v2 combined with a good power cord would out perform the NAD plus outboard DacMagic. Either way, at the price point used, the two Cambridge products would provide a distinct step up from what you have now with the older NAD.

The new NAD C-545BEE is supposed to be pretty good too at $499, but I have not heard it yet.

Drag racing? Hmmm.... Are you sure you haven't suffered loss of high frequency hearing? That would certainly cause your system to sound like you're describing. First, check your tweeters. If they're good, have your hearing checked.