I'll take some exception to the general recommendation of "buying the very best you can afford" and spending your wad on a digital front end. I would first make sure that the differences between what is available in $2000 price range that is abundant with damn fine players (even less if you buy used) are both perceivable, and most of all worth the added $3 grand to buy some more-state-of-the-art $5k unit. Though it may sound better to you, it also may not at all, and then what a waste of scratch that would be!
As far as making bad recordings sound better; I'd agree, no CD player is going to accomplish that. I've recently gone over to a quite wonderful Wright-Sound AG1000 preamplifier (from his dealer line). That unit has 'tilt' controls for 100hz and 10khz. They have a bypass switch as well. These are not 'tone' controls, but 'tilt' controls - someone more smarter than me can splain how they differ but my poor understanding of such things is that tone simply boosts or lowers the specific octave, while tilt actually 'tilts' the spectrum around that octave...did I get that right?. I've found that I can do some bit of fudging that will definitely improve the listenability of some poorly mixed recordings and make them much more enjoyable than they were with a pre with no such controls. They've worked brilliantly on several bad recordings I've tried them on. I don't know which other high-end pre's offer this option, but it may be a better way to address the problems you wish to solve with a better front end. I can highly recommend the Wright pre as an outstanding pre as well.
Marco
As far as making bad recordings sound better; I'd agree, no CD player is going to accomplish that. I've recently gone over to a quite wonderful Wright-Sound AG1000 preamplifier (from his dealer line). That unit has 'tilt' controls for 100hz and 10khz. They have a bypass switch as well. These are not 'tone' controls, but 'tilt' controls - someone more smarter than me can splain how they differ but my poor understanding of such things is that tone simply boosts or lowers the specific octave, while tilt actually 'tilts' the spectrum around that octave...did I get that right?. I've found that I can do some bit of fudging that will definitely improve the listenability of some poorly mixed recordings and make them much more enjoyable than they were with a pre with no such controls. They've worked brilliantly on several bad recordings I've tried them on. I don't know which other high-end pre's offer this option, but it may be a better way to address the problems you wish to solve with a better front end. I can highly recommend the Wright pre as an outstanding pre as well.
Marco