Best sounding CD player

@facten .....Yes you are correct but at what price....I'm using the CEC-5 Transport from Japan...belt drive...Like Jays' but more cost effective.....the playback is flawless with the Audio mirror tubed DAC.....the sounstage is really Deep with this set up.....Live sounding.

@mbmi  - I was reacting to your comment that a $600 Audiolab transport coupled with a quality DAC will get you the equivalent of "+10K big boy" ; that hasn't been my  experience.  Folks understate the SQ impact of quality transports.  CEC is well known for the quality of its transports so I am not surprised by your listening experience. Enjoy!

i like my upsampling CD player i got 2 decades ago. i also like the apollo made by rega, a nice mellow-sounding unit that is a good match for the equally mellow-sounding brio-r amp. 

The Esoteric K01 XD is a superb player. Sound wise, it simply sounds more natural than anything else I've heard from standalone players.

I get the impression that Esoteric doesn't have as much market presence in the US as it has in Europe and Asia.

There are some extremely good ones eg Consonance, Audionet Planck, Edelweiss.