difficulty finding CD player match for Magneplanar

Timoteo, like most previous answer suggest, you have a very serious bottleneck in your amplifier. I have used your very Maggies 3As for 20 years. . . All Magnepan speakers are major serious power hogs! Not even my original Aragon 4004 was making them happy at 200W per channel. They became a lot happier with the Rowland 7M monoblocks. . . plenty of power there. . . very effortless but not yet enough control for the bass region as their damping factor is only 175 or so. Besides, the old Rowland 7M run very hot to the touch and were simply not right for Texas summers. Your Maggies will truly shine if you feed them what they crave to recieve, lots of power and a relatively high damping factor of perhaps 250 or higher.

You may want to look at amps that are between 300 and 500 watts per channel. Such amps can be real drags on your monthly energy bills. . . unless you use amps that run cool to the touch: some class A/B amps with low bias, and most class D amps would fit the power requirement.
In pure amps I warmly recommend the Bel canto Reference 1000 Mk.2 monoblocks at 500W per channel over 8 Ohms and 1000W over 4 Ohms (the maggie's impedance) and a damping factor of 1000. . . don't be deceived by their small size. . . their sound's deliciously amazing and they even handle my current Vienna Mahler speakers, which may be even more difficult to drive than the Maggies 3As. See my review on Positive Feedback at:
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue43/bel_canto_ref1000.htm
If you were willing to consider an integrated amp, you may look the Rowland Continuum 500. . . same 1000W per channel over 4 Ohms and 1000 damping factor, with 40 Amps current of the Bel cantos, with probably a more sophisticated AC power rectification front end and more bulk capacitance in the output, combined with a killer linestage circuit. . . same found in the Rowland Capri pre.
If cool operation were a major factor for you, the Bel Cantos run cooler than the Rowland. . . the front end PFC-based AC rectifier in the Rowland Continuum 500 generates a fair amount of heat.
Only thing to watch out is that class D amps take several hundreds of hours of break in to sound at their best, otherwise they can sound EXTREMELY dry.
As the amp is definitely your weakest link by far, initially you may want to consider getting a relatively inexpensive CDp, such as an OPPO, which are reputed to be fabulous price performers. . . then invest in a higher quality CDp later on if you were not yet satisfied of the results.

Guido

I used a 360w/CH cARVER M4.0T WITH MY mAGGIE IIIa's (and Icon MkII). This was a pretty good combo that I lived with for over 15 years. That power did not go to waste with those Maggies at all.

For an inexpensive experiment that should offer an improvement, these or other high power Carver amps (some models which deliver higher current as well) can be had for not much used these days.

Next up the cost chart would be the high power Class Ds. Wyred4Sound offers a good, cost effective unit. BEl CAnto and then Rowland will cost more but perhaps offer even higher levels of refinement, if needed.

BTW, I am confident that once the power issue for the Maggies is resolved, most any well received modern CD player can outperform what you heard with the venerable Cal Ikon MkII.

As an alternative point of view, why are you using Maagneplanars for rock and jazz/fusion? In general I don't prescribe to components being music genre specific, but my experiences in listening to Maggies (store demos only), I wouldn't call them a rock/rhythm music oriented speaker. I think Maggies sound great, but like Quads aren't ideally suited for all types of music at loud to louder volumes.

My reaction is that 200wpc (@ 8 ohms) isn't enough for these speakers. I am using an amp with that rating on MMGs and get some clipping.

I'm glad you're on the forum asking questions - you have a world-class speaker with a c*** front-end. There's a B&K 4420 on sale right now here on Agon - my advice is put in a bid for it ASAP.

On the digital front-end, consider a separate CDP/DAC alignment. But that's the least of your problems.

" I wouldn't call them a rock/rhythm music oriented speaker."

A true statement in regards to low-end impact and dynamics if that is important to you, but they are still very versatile in all other regards and do very well with all kinds of music.

I'd still pick up a good affordable amp with enough muscle to make the Maggies sing first before doing anything else.