Any advice on CD player upgrade?

I think that you are on the right track with the Meridian 508.24. It is very musical and gets all diffrent kinds of music right. Wadia is also a good bet, a little more expensive than Meridian, but you can run it direct to the amp and sell your preamp if you don't have any other sources than CD. I have owned Rega Planet, Meridian 508.24, Wadia 860x, and Resolution Audio CD50. In my opinion the Meridian is the most well rounded player of the bunch. I stuck with the 860 (as I wanted to go without a preamp) which I though bettered the Resolution Audio player. I saw one (Meridian 508.24) for sale today on Audiogon for a good deal. Good luck.

It's hard to beat Meridian, the 508.24 is excellent, so is the 566 DAC which I have coupled with the 200 transport (same as the 508 just 2 boxes instead of 1). I still have the discontinued 263 bitstream DAC and it is outstanding also. I will say this both DAC's IMO sound better with a Meridian transport which would now be the 500 as the 200 has been discontinued. Good luck in your choice.

save your money for a better preamp (or speakers, or *whatever*). dollar for dollar, you will get better sound substantially upgrading your preamp w/your same cd player, than the other way around. the law of diminishing returns is more applicable to cd hardware than to any other equipment, imho. also, lots folks report getting better sound w/res-audio cd players run thru good preamps, instead of being run straight into their amps, so why bother w/a unit that devotes so much of its cost to its volume control circuitry? one person's opinion... doug

I'm in the same boat as Outlier, and have a new system that's WAY too resolving for my old CDP (Rotel 855). I tried the ARCAM 9, and although I found the midrange very well fleshed out, I'm afraid I have to agree with other posters who found the ARCAM rhythmic prowess wanting...the old Rotel simply keeps my foot tapping! Nonetheless, its top octave is rough as hell, so my search includes the Res Audio CD55 (Sedlund: it's just an op amp, and, although a good one, not expensive enough to sway a decision; even RA suggests using a GREAT preamp instead if you already have one.), the Wadia 850 (not 830!), or the Bel Canto DAC1/PioneerDVD, or the new Perpetual Tech stuff. Anybody heard these? I want a finely resolved top octave and reasonable bass weight, and NO compromises in the midband. Thanks.

hi soobie-guru, my point is that if ya inwest another $3k into yer preamp, you will get better results w/yer current cd player than investing $3k into another cd player, w/yer current preamp. yust my opinion of course. (i *am* biased towards vinyl, if ya haven't figured it out!) doug