"George Hayek" wrote in message
...
Looking to upgrade the weak link, and it is IMO my CD player. Advice
welcome, especially relative to "synergistic matching" with my existing
setup:

Revel Gems (w/HGS10 sub)
Krell FPB200
Sonic Frontiers Line 1 (w/SF factory special edition upgrade)
Anthem CD1
Goertz speaker cable
Audio Research balanced cables preamp-amp path,
AQ mid-range cables between CD and preamp

I think the CD1 is nice, but looking for something more transparent,
musically involving, but not fatiguing.
The CD1 produces a "veiled" sound, hiding some of the music I know is
there.

I have listend to:

Classe CDP10 -- too dry/analytical in my system
Meridian 588 -- liked it quite a bit, but transport had problems (skipped)

Players I have thought about, but have not (and likely can't get to)
audition::

New Meridian line
BAT VK-D5
Audio Research CD2 (3?)

Balanced outputs to drive the Line1 would be preferred, but not a hard
requirement. Price point below 3k preferred, not to exceed 4k.

Finally, I am a SACD/DVDA skeptic (will wait out the format wars) so a
combo
player is not of interest.

Thanks in advance

A good, revealing system.

Your skepticism is robbing you of some good choices in a combo cd/sacd or
cd/universal player. Sony XA777ES, or a used SONY SCD-1 or Musical Fidelity
Tri-Vista if you are sure multichannel is not in your future come to mind.

Most opinion of people moving from very expensive CD players to the above
items is that they give up little/nothing on CD....you would probably find a
substantial improvement from the Anthem CD-1 and then could avail yourself
of SACD (which is definitely more transparent) and possibly DVD-A (which
certainly has more extended and smoother highs).