Major upgrade from Rega Apollo: Which one?

I owned an Apollo and was looking for the same thing you are. I bought a Sim Audio 260D. It meets all of my expectations and is clearly better than the CD player I had before the Apollo, a Meridian 508.24 (this was a $4000 machine in itsday). The Sim also is better than the Apollo.

Audio Space CDP8A. Had the Apollo in my system and the Audio Space is more musical. Allows a SS or Tubed output.

Mated with W4S and Maggie 3.6's.

"Mr. Courant, please explain.Perhaps you had a defective Saturn."

Formally, it's Doctor Courant. :-) (I'm an experimental psychologist by trade)

My impression was that the G98DH had better Bass, Detail/Clarity, and Soundstage compared to the Saturn. I was running both sources through Linn Exotik/Akurate 2200 (2010) with Harbeth Compact 7es-3s. The Meridian made the Harbeths disappear. The Saturn had a warmer sound, but lacked the degree of sonic detail & soundstage compared to the G98DH. The Saturn was good, but the Meridian was AWESOME.

Again, this is a personal preference. There just seemed to be better synergy pairing the Meridian source with my Linn pre/amp setup. Again, YMMV.

Sony 5400 ES.