Good morning Skyscraper, not long ago I was in a similar situation, I had (still have, as a matter of fact) an Arcam UDP411 which I purchased used on the recommendation of a review and because I was looking for one machine to cover a lot of bases, Blu-ray video, and SACD along with red book. I liked the sound a lot, a little toward the analog side for a CD player, whatever that worth as a description, but it had such technical problems. Such as only playing discs when it felt like it. I had work done on it, but still the same issues for the most part. So I went looking and found a Yamaha Cd-s2100 for a very good price new. It does have an ESS dac in it, and it does have a slightly less analog sound than the Arcam. However, I find it to be a very good sounding unit. Mechanically I have no issues with it, but it does take it’s time loading discs after the tray is closed. It is SACD capable. Recently a friend lent me his Schitt Modi multibit, and I have to say I preferred the sound of the multibit dac ever so slightly over the ESS, but I can easily say it was preference, not a leap in quality overall. If I never get a separate dac, I could easily see myself happy with the dac in the Yamaha. I looked into, but never got the chance to audition the Marantz units mentioned in other posts, and the Ruby was a strong contender. But the Yamaha won out because of price and balanced outputs. I may look into a separate dac in the future, but for right now I’m digging the Yamaha for price/performance ratio. It is definitely the best player I’ve owned. It may be a discontinued model, which may be why I got the nice price, but I think Yamaha has replaced it with model which may be even better, but I’m sure, at a higher price point. I was also considering one of the used Esoteric models, but given my experience with the Arcam, I wanted to buy a new unit.
Best wishes in the search, and a happy new year to all,
Dave
Best wishes in the search, and a happy new year to all,
Dave