Best CD transport?

I was in a similar position somewhat except that I wasn't ripping anything but simply needed a transport to feed via spdif into my Dac (Lampizator Big 6 then recently a Big7) so I did exactly what you originally said you would: I bought an Oppo BDP 105 which I use strictly as a transport for coax out. I had read, as you, that it was pretty well built,(it is) and has so far proven reliable and permitted both dacs to sound pretty darn awesome. I briefly tried it once alone via its own analog outs and it sounded better than you might expect a $1200. player but aside from that one time I have never utilized it for any other purpose but for its coax out.To my mind it was an appropriate price point for its purpose...much less $$$ and I figured there is still plenty of stuff out there that would work but perhaps not quite as robust or considerate of parts quality/bang-for-the-buck; any more expensive seemed counter-intuitive since I wasn't interested in any other aspects of what it can do. As for resale, at some point down the line its remarkable versatility would seem to make it a good used choice for a wide variety of people. For the record, the Lampizator Dacs are stupendous.
Good luck with your decision.

I tried a cec before I tried the Oppo...I don't recall which model it was but it was definitely several years old but was also at least a few K$$$$. It sounded really good and certainly better than the Oppo ...the ONLY reason I didn't buy it was that it played only redbook CD's...nothing else. Not even burned copies of anything...it it wasn't redbook, it wouldn't play. Unfortunately, even though I have a reasonable collection of Redbooks, I already have quite a few copies and other discs that I frequently enjoy and I had to turn it down for that reason...but I was impressed (and somewhat disappointed) that there could be such a difference...more relaxed/natural/'easy listening'... I'll even say more "Analog sounding", it was a great sounding player. But the Oppo fills the bill nicely, especially now that I've climbed even higher up the dac tree.
Good luck.