Looking for CD players with digital inputs.

Wadia.

It's quite reasonable to use a cd player. The Quad is quite nice for an older, devalued piece. The Quad could also support both direct and variable outputs so you would not need a preamp. Be cautious as the first gens had unreliable transports. Later gens were fine.

That being said, in general the newer dac's on the market are quite a bit better than most of the CD players with digital inputs that I have heard. They simply have better chips and some fairly nice dejitter technologies.

A note on the apple tv as a high falutin music source. If you are using an older model that had the hard drive built in, you will get a little better sound from the hard drive. The newer model that is streaming only gives audio sound with a fairly high level of jitter. This is due to the network jump.

Disclaimer-I have ties to av industry.

$1,000 - $1500 range basically. But, the best alternative may be a Benchmark DAC HDR and keep my current Elite universal player (use analog outs for sacd/dvd-a). Then find a nicely priced pair of tube monoblocks

Not mentioned yet, and well worth your consideration (on the used market):

Resolution Audio Opus 21

Does the CA740 have such inputs?
I know my 840 DOES and a pair of each.

However, if going to the used market, Make Sure the player has the latest software.....or you may find a source with excess jitter will baffle it......and produce an awful noise.