@jaybe honestly, just not many viable options at $500 for your taste. I have a 5k Dac the Resonessence Mirus Pro and because it has such great sound quality I found it difficult to find a transport that I could use and spend just a little money on that sounded like I wanted. I actually ended purchasing a parasound cd1 for my cds. I just think at $500 you won't get what you want I think the 1500 range may get you some better options.
Are There Any Really Good $500 CD Players?
Time to upgrade my years old Marantz cheapo CD player, which works fine but sounds horrid compared to my server/DAC and turntable front ends. Even feeding the player's output into my $3500 DAC it still doesn't sound great. Understood everything is relative and more money buys better sound, but is there anything around the $500 price point that sounds at least moderately "high end"? I’d consider used as well as new.