Whats the deal with CD players?

I understand your how you feel. I was there 2 years ago. I had bought the top of the line Denon player ($600) and thought it could not be beat. A friend recommended I try some upgraded cables. Again, I thought a cable is a cable. But gave it a try, I bought a couple of 1/2 meter Audio Quest Vipers(about $75) and was BLOWN AWAY. I next upgraded my speaker cables to Audio Quest Slates ($150) and was further shocked. This began a long journey, but I will tell you a rewarding one. Forget the Prozac, I have found my system the best stress reducer I have ever tried. It is simply unbelieveable. Has anyone seen any research on the effects of really high end audio listening on the human pyche?

I would try the sony SACD ES-333es, you can't beat the sound for the money (about $500) Stereophile class A.

Tweekerman brings up a good point regarding quality. I have had in the past about 4k in a transport and dac. They both were returned some time in their life for sevice to make them well again. They sounded great, but they broke. I do not know if the two companies still service the units. One of them, the transport, no longer has the transport mechanism made. If the mechanism is not used currently in cd-rom or DVD applications, beware if you are going to keep the unit for many years. You can buy a cheap DVD player and treat it like kleenex:use it and throw it away when its finished. Vinyl seems like a better investment to me than digital. By the way, I sold my two units and bought a cheap dvd player...big drop in sound quality. I will be buying a VPI soon. Jallen

There are a bunch of good ideas here, i might try some better interconnects, but i remain skeptical on how improved conductance will help over such a short distance, especially considering the innards of my components will not be nearly as good as the cables. Granted the improved sheilding should help, but i havn't had any ground hum problems and have a fairly low noise floor.
As for my equipment, I use the H/K signature amp and preamp (i use the preamps direct inputs to bypass the dsp)my speakers are the dynaudio 1.8's. I am happy with my current setup, the only thing that has led me on this search was that my sony 300 dvd player cannot play cdr's, so i have been looking for a dedicated cd player that will also improve my regular cd's. I was just suprised how little improvment other players made considering what i have read about the importance of the source. I didn't want to mention the CD players i have tested b/c the salespeople were nice enough to let me demo them, but they were all highly rated and ranged from 300 to $1100.
I think my testing methods are sound, i have given each extended listening periods with pre-broken in equipment, with many music samples. I don't think a person should have to train their ears to hear minute differences. In my opinion, these differences should be apparent, so that an $1100 dollar CD player would be able to trounce a $300 dvd player. Again, this is my opinion based on my limited experience and crappy cables. I will try some new cables and update my post. Thanks for all the responces, the posts have been quite inciteful.

First jitter is the cd equivalent of wow and flutter on a tape deck ( Speed variance ) Second this is supposed to make a difference in sound quality of your player . I bought a Mark Levinson No.37 transport without ever hearing one and WAS SHOCKED at how good this thing sounds . I have had up to 10 different players in my system and like you could not hear a lot of difference between them until I got the Levinson!
The Levinson jitter rate is supposed to be 12 or 25 times better than a regular player because it reclocks the data right before output . Well anyway the sound is STUNNING and I do not even have an up to date DAC and in comparison to my Panasonic DVD player it makes a mockery of it . The clarity and smoothness just disappears . As far as cables go try a pair of Kimber KCAG between amp and preamp and for your player outputs ! I know the KCAGs are expensive but when you hear them the sound quality will last long after the price has been forgotten!

I'm jumping in late, but I wonder how many of the posters have heard one of the more recent DVD players (mine was a modded Pioneer DV-4l4, only recently replaced by a Sony XA777ES) playing CDs. My DV4l4, despite the raised eyebrows of some audiobuddies, more than held its own in a $25K system where it replaced a nearly $4K CD transport/DAC. Compared head-to-head with "better" CD players and transport/DACs, it was never outpointed until I got the Sony SACD player. You don't ALWAYS get what you pay for.