Help picking a CD player

but it kept having issues.

Not unusual.

All the reason not to spend too much for a CDP.

and avoid the budget ones.

Seems to me, $1500 to $2000 is a good range. Those are the quality makes and are worth the repair cost. Under $1000, they become throwaways.

Audiolab makes a good transport. Rotel makes good sounding CD players

Stay away from Used.

I agree with the Rotel.  I purchased the RCD 1572 MKII new and it sounds excellent and has been very reliable over the years.  Highly recommended. 

One thing to consider is what CD drive is each of your chosen manufacturers using. They could all be using the same drive as there are not that many companies who make them now.

 For me Teac/Tascam/Esoteric (same company) make the best drives of all of them. Find one of those if you can in your budget. I know Teac put out a new lower priced CD player/transport recently with the VDRS drive in it, probably the best CD drive series made.  

@pippi 

Keeping with your list, the April Music unit was very well reviewed, and it is a top loader, meaning you won’t experience drawer mechanism issues since there’s no drawer.

Better a good vintage unit than a mediocre new player that will magically lose half of its value when you take it out of the box.

Respectfully, I will recommend change in play back philosophy.  Why spend on a physical media player?  At a $1000.00 price point you can go into an entry level streaming DAC like a Cambridge CXN 100 and set you computer up as a server for ripped files, or you can buy a Bluesound Node 2 streaming DAC together with a Bluesound Vault 2 server/DAC for probably under $1000. Also, pre owned Aurender A 100s are selling at your price point with an onboard high resolution streaming DAC and 1 or 2 TB server storage. I find streaming quality better than CD, and once you become used to the convenience, you will not look back.  For me, physical media is a memory.  I cannot make a recommendation on which has better SQ since I did not do a head to head assessment.  However, I will state I like the Aurender house sound and they have excellent customer support.  If you go Aurender, I recommend you buy preowned/certified from a dealer.  I am just trying to give you food for thought on an alternative approach within your budget.  Good luck.