If you can deal with a drawer that sometimes tries to close before you manage to get a CD in it, the EAD T-7000 is quite easily the best transport I have heard under several thousand dollars and perhaps a bit more.... It is based on a Philips laser disk mechanisim and for whatever reason sounds fantastic. A friend of mine has one and that transport has embarrassed many of our high end one box players when they're used as transports only. The EAD, coupled with a good Audio Note DAC, Audio Logic DAC, or heck maybe even a modified ART DI\O would outperform (easily) most 4000 ---> 7000 one box players (and then some). I think you can get an EAD T-7000 for under $400 used.
Please note! To avoid confusion... Whenever I recommend the EAD T-7000, people usually come back and say, what about the T-1000?? Newer versions of the transport (and one box players) are NOT the same and are NOT better performers. If the unit is NOT a T-7000, it is NOT the unit I am speaking of.
Also keep in mind, the T-7000 is no longer a supported product and Philips no longer makes the mechanisim inside the transport. Beware of this before and if you buy & make sure the unit works well. I will state again, the problem with the door closing prematurely is common to these units and seems to be the only thing to worry about.
