source disappointment

Wheeler:
IMO, the remarks made above all have the ring of truth and the wisdom of experience.
In my experience in the last two years, I have moved from an HT environment to a music environment. I have cycled thru a number of pieces, within my limited budget. I have taken the approach of focusing on the front end first. I am using MLs, and am using an Audio Logic DAC.
After acquiring the AL DAC, I used a number of pieces as transports and was disappointed that I heard no differences that seemed to me to be significant. Then I had the fortune to get a CEC TL2 Transport. I now know that the transport CAN make a difference.
The advice from Hdm is IMO spot on. The Philips 963SA IS a terrific piece for the money. I recently purchased one for the DVD player and for my first taste of SACD. For the $, this piece is amazing.

As a Linn Sondek owner I can sympathize with your search for the best possible source. My own opinion is different from Hdm's--I think there is a lot to gain from looking high up the scale. Higher than Arcam. I would compare both your players with a Linn Ikemi, a very good YBA, a Moon Eclipse, or even a Shanling CD-T100 like mine, before I would compare them side by side. I would do this even if I couldn't afford the best right away, just to know what the good stuff sounded like. Then I would look for the player that sounded closest to that without breaking my budget.

You do get more bang for your buck today than ten or even four years ago, but with respect to Hdm, there is a serious limit to the music you can get from a source under $1000, even with very good equipment downstream. At worst, the electronics and speakers will only reveal the source's imperfections more clearly--but that shouldn't be the case with your system.

One final idea has to do with how evaluations are done, and please excuse me if I'm repeating what you already know. Rapid switching between players--called A-B testing--is not the way to spot differences, in my experience. Instead, choose a varied selection of pieces and listen to them all the way through, first on one player, then the next. Pay attention to the music and the emotion, not the details like timbres, PRAT and the rest. If you find your mind wandering, it's a bad sign. OTOH, if you find tourself touched, that's good.

Best of luck !

Good thoughts.

I just remembered hearing something about the high output impedance of the AN CD 2 which apparently means that it should be used with amplifier inputs with a suitable input impedance, "ideally around 47kOhms"

I don't know how the SLP-88 or Cary 2a3s relate in this respect.

If you picked your interconnect cables because they sounded good with your Panasonic; you may want to start over with cables.

CD players are very cable dependent from my experience.

Cables that make the Audio Note sound nice, could very likely bring out the worst in the Panasonic.