Or, you could look at it another way... To me, the DAC makes more difference in the final quality of the sound than the transport. Although, I do admit that I find some transports sound better than others.
So my strategy would be to skimp a little bit on the transport and buy a really great sounding DAC. If you approach it like that, it is certainly possible to put together a transport/DAC combination that would outperform a single-box player of the DAC and transport's combined price... And the DAC and transport don't even need to be the same brand. For example, I'm using a Rega Planet CD player in one system with a Benchmark DAC1, and a Parasound CD/B-2000 transport with a Monarchy M24 DAC in another system. Both combinations sound excellent (though different) to my ears.
So my strategy would be to skimp a little bit on the transport and buy a really great sounding DAC. If you approach it like that, it is certainly possible to put together a transport/DAC combination that would outperform a single-box player of the DAC and transport's combined price... And the DAC and transport don't even need to be the same brand. For example, I'm using a Rega Planet CD player in one system with a Benchmark DAC1, and a Parasound CD/B-2000 transport with a Monarchy M24 DAC in another system. Both combinations sound excellent (though different) to my ears.