Hegel Viking sound

So it's not just a new CD player you're in an entirely new room? That brings up a lot of possibilities at play besides the CD player. Perhaps look at speaker positioning and/or some room treatments?

I have a Viking coming this week. For what it's worth, Hegel encourages using the balanced analogue XLR output to take advantage of the player's AKM chipset. 

Say more about balanced analogue xlr output. 

@knorpi 

FWIW, I’m very sensitive to bright sound. I’ve tried both Hegel H390 with onboard AKM based DAC and Hegel’s D50 sabre-based D50 DAC and while the presentations did noticeably differ, I found neither to be forward or tipped up. 

Could be many things including but not limited to cd player. 
Can you post pictures of your current system?