Good "warm" CD player for $500

Spend your $500 on room treatments before you buy anything else -- a few well placed acoustic panels will benefit your bright problem, and your entire system, more then another cdp IMO.

Acoustic panels are prob the most unsexy thing you can buy but the hype is true. I hung some panels in back of the speakers, put small Cathedral panels in the ceiling corners and finally put up some drapes over a window that was right next to a speaker. I did about as much as I could w/o turning my living room into a recording studio. Visually the panels match the walls and are pretty unobtrusive. Sonically the sound is more natural, focused, tame and dimensional. Money well spent.

Jolida JD 100 roll with the tubes can really change sound significantly.I own 2 units hard to beat used $500- $600 as a deal.I run the telefunken gold pins in mine and am very satified.The phillips transport in these units are very good at this price point.

I also have a Jolida JD-100 with Underwood Lvl 1 mods, plus add'l mods like teflon caps. It was an improvement over my prior NAD C542 cd player which was good for its price point. I have a Sonic Fronters Power 2 tube amp which is very detailed and powerfull but NOT warm. My TAD 150 Signature tube preamp and Jolida cd player help balance out the overall sound. My QUAD 22L2 speakers really 'sing' using the above set up. Best of luck.

If you can stretch your budget or buy one used, the Eastsound E5 is a stellar sounding source for the price ($800 new, $500 used). Do a search on this player on Head-fi.org and you will learn a lot about this player. Bottom line is that it is cheap because it is made in China. But I have not had any problems with reliability and have used mine pretty much every day for the last three years.

Buy a used Arcam cd 92 or 23