gable,
after nearly 2 years of searching, shopping, demos, & alot of thought, i recently purchased a dedicated cd player, a cary audio 303/300. in the end i purchased it for several reasons, the best red book cd sound quality i had heard in my system, for the on the fly switching from tube to solid state output, for the balanced output (so for 2 channel my entire system is now running in balanced) and for the upsampling. what i wanted was a new universal player, a one box solution that would do everything well, and after looking & demoing, etc. etc. i never found it. while a 303/300 is well outside your stated budget, my point is that a dedicated cd player can make a significant sonic improvement in your system, & is a worthwhile investment. i owned a 2910 & sold it, demoed the 3910, 5910, own a cary dvd6, demoed multiple times a cary dvd7, demoed the classe cdp-300, & currently have on demo a cary audio dvd8 (for use as a dvd player only). the dvd7 came the closest to being a 1 box solution, with a spectacular picture & great cd sound, but in direct comparison with a 303/300 the 303 was clearly the better player for cd, particularly with a symphony. however the dvd7 would not play dvda/sacd, & with the new hd formats coming out i decided to go with a dedicated cd player with the intent of buying a dvd player and or hd/bd player down the road.
for your purposes i would look for a good used player or at cambridge audio, whose cd players appear to be getting rave reviews.
