Marantz CD6005,SA8004 or Oppo 105?

I personally wouldn't get anything that wasn't SACD capable. You may not care about the surround SACD option, but it would also increase your options going forward. I have a Pioneer Elite stereo SACD player that the few people that care seem to like. I also might steer away from Oppo simply because I like the idea of simplicity and not paying for features that you will never use. Often, there is more value in other products.

If you are just going to listen to CD's, I would try to find a used Rotel RCD-1072. They do come up for sale every so often, but you have to be fast because they sell almost immediately. Its just one of those components that they just got right.

Mceljo,

Why SACD? Its a great format but I don't see a lot of support for it. Are you able to find music that you really want to listen to? For me, I just accumulated a bunch of demo CD's that I used to test the format, but not much more.

If you look on Amazon you will see quite a few SACD options and in my experience they are almost always excellent recordings. It seems that if the goal was SACD then it makes sense to listen to it in that format. I also have a Sony blu-ray player that outputs stereo and surround DSD into my receiver and for some music surround really makes a huge difference for the positive. Stereo is better for the vast majority, but surround is the ticket for some recordings. SACD includes the surround as an option. Just recently I heard a positive improvement between Redbook and SACD, my integrated seemed to take my system to the point that the difference was real.

Klimt - If you haven't yet, check recent postings to a very old thread called, "The Best CD Player for the Money". Some interesting comments there from Mr.Tennis. See also his recent CDP reviews in Audiophilia.

Thanks for the responses. It seems like everyone is switching to music server based systems these days. Is that truly the trend and if so is the sound quality as good? And is it more or less expensive?

Thanks