Just an update...
I finally purchased the Musical Fidelity 3.5 CD Player, Acoustic Zen Matrix interconnect and soon to arrive, AZ Satori speaker cables. Roughly a two week period between purchases.
The harshness and electronic haze I discussed in my earlier posts has diminished greatly. In my opinion, the largest impact since my first post was a decent burn in period of the Musical Fidelity 3.5 Amp, which was new at the time, and the replacement of the NAD CD player. The MF CD player also needed a decent burn in period but at 100 hrs, the quality of sound got better. This was easy to do by simply letting the player run in repeat mode and just hear the comparison, day to day after I came home from work. The Matrix interconnect definetly changed the character of the sound for the better compared the monster cable that I was using.
I still have to incorporate the AZ speaker cables and will probably replace the power cords at some point, but I'm trying to do this a step at a time so I understand what each upgrade is adding and removing.
I want to thank everyone that provided suggestions.