Superior sound from newer CD players?


I have a 12 year old Luxman DZ-111 CD player(dual 16-bit DAC's, 4x oversampling, 3-beam laser). It still sounds good but I've been putting togeather a new system and want to upgrade my player also. Will most of the newer players give me an upgrade in sound? I'm considering used players like:
Rega Planet 2000
Cal Labs Icon Mk11/HDCD
Creek 43Mk11
Adcom GCD 750
NAD S500
Arcam CD-72
Also considering a new Cambridge D500se(is it in the same league as the others?) One concern I have is that the older Luxman sounds much better(to me) than my new DVD player with
96 kHz 24-bit DAC. The DVD player is a Denon 1500 and when playing CD's it sounds cold, shrill and harsh compared to the Luxman although it has greater detail(or maybe just brighter detail). So now I'm worried that maybe these other player's I've mentioned won't really be an improvement after all. Also I plan on getting a pre/proc like a used Lexicon DC-1 or 2. Won't the dac's in a good unit like this be as good or better than most DACs in the players I've mentioned? I guess you can tell I'm new at this and still confused
say811

Showing 1 response by miked

If you plan on getting a Lexicon (other than the MC-12) the units you mentioned (DC-1, DC-2) don't have an analog pass through function that would enable you to take advantage of the DACs in a newer CD player. You would be using the DACs in the Lexicon, you should keep this in mind when purchasing the CD player.