How's the CD-5000???

Is it better than the denon 370? Nad 521?

Best player on a budget would be a cheap but reliable transport + Art D/IO. The next step up moneywise would be an Sony ES SACD player.

If you get a Denon-370 for dirt cheap (closer to $100 than 200), + an Art D/IO you can get two great budget outputs. The Denon has actually worked very well with the D/IO and I never lose locks nor have to do any magic for it to do any locks after figuring out how to put the D/IO into the different modes correctly in the first place.

There are probably other cheap players that would work well as transports.

any opinions on marantz?

Im not too sure about the cd5000 but the 6000ose is pretty sweet

I auditioned all three when I was looking for a new CDP. I didn't really like the CD5000, it sounded a bit thinny to me. Of those three I like the NAD best then the Denon then the Marantz.
In the end I decided to spend just a little bit more and get the Marantz CD6000 (which costs the same as the NAD over here), which is a real winner for me. It's musical, detailed, excelent imaging, smooth etc etc.

Marantz is certainly a classic company that makes respected players...

But I'd spend the money on a c333es 'cause that just slaughters the competition in redbook up until about $800. Given that it cost me $400 and can be had for less than $550, it's a good deal.

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mmm.. That's just magazine talk. I'll admit I've never heard the c333es, but I have heard other Sony SACD players. So it slaughters CD-players up to $800. But there's also $800 CDP's that "perform way above there class" and "slaughter CDP's up to $1200". Would it slaughter those too? I don't believe this kind of nonsense.
Also, it seems there's always one CDP recommended here. First it was the Denon 370, so I went through a lot of trouble to audition it and it wasn't all that good! Similar priced or slightly more expensive NAD and Marantz CDP's "slaughter" it. Now it's the c333es.
All I can give you is my opinion but the best thing one can do is audition a few players in your pricerange and decide which one you like best.

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Actually, it's not "magazine talk;" a lot of people here have compared the Redbook playback of the 333ES to some of the highly-recommended CDPs in the $1,000 and under range, and found it to be comparable or better. Rega Planet, Musical Fidelity A3CD, just to name a couple.

The 333ES is the real deal. The Denon is a good player, but it stands out more because it outperforms most players at that price ($200 or so). The 333ES retailed for $1200 and was worth it at that price, so for $400-$500, it's a steal.

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I'll put in my bit right now by saying IMO, the 9000ES totally walks, stomps, and then shines its boots with the Rega Jupiter 2000, a $1800 player, so I know price has very little to do with how good a player can sound. I don't know what SACD players you heard, but if it wasn't part of the ES line, it was probably a waste of time to audition it anyways, unless you were listening to the SACD side strictly.

If the 333 even sounds near the 9000ES, it most certainly destroys the Denon 370, which I previously owned. The 9000 is (AT LAST!!!) an ENORMOUS leap over the Denon, totally unlike that Jupiter I heard. And as I said before, we are in the age, regardless of suvivability, where people are going to keep the new formats like SACD and DVD-A and HDCD in the back of their heads when they look at players. If you can get one player that can play two formats and only gives up a bit on the redbook side compared to the next player that can only play CDs well, I think the choice becomes pretty obvious. I mean, I don't think anybody is going to disagree the 333 is at least as good as, if not better, than the $500 CDPs out there, without even touching anything over $500. Factor in the SACD and carousel capability, and tank like build quality, and it becomes very hard not to keep mentioning the 333 over and over.

I say all this as I just recently came off of going through all these CDP decisions myself, after a rather sleepless 3 weeks of wading through CDPs from the $500-1000 region. Sony just simply made a very devilish move in droping their first/second generation SACD player's prices so much, and their players are just very hard to resist within certain price points in this current generation of CDPs, such as the $500, $800, $1000, and $1500 areas. I finally ended up going with Sony myself, and have been extremely happy ever since.

With that said, I'll admit I also don't believe that "magazine talk" about blah blah player competing with so and so player that costs 10,000 times more than it or whatever. Either the player sounds good right then and there for whatever it costs, or forget it. Frankly these new ways of measuring a player's value is pretty ridiculous IMO. I've heard mags comparing the SCD-1 to the Linn Sondek CD12 and talking about those two valuewise, but how many people will even understand that value in the audible sense?

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Unfortunately I am one of them. You CDP is definitely better than my laptop and your R-10 KING is way better then my $5 ear-bud "slave". Talking about value??? You have to understand the diminishing return, then everything makes sense.

Vertigo-1, a question: I can recall a post where you talked about how disappointing the Jupiter was when heard through headphones whereas the difference between that and your old player was much more significant through speakers, and your theory by extension was that the differences between CD players were subtle at best when used with headphones. Should I assume that your enthusiastic endorsement of the 9000ES is only valid when the player's used with a good set of speakers?

I think the reason is that the 9000ES is WAY better then the Jupiter.

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I wasn't talking about value in the money sense of what one can afford. I was speaking as in how many consumers, whether rich or poor, reading those reviews have actually heard for themselves both an SCD-1 and Linn Sondek CD12 side by side (that's a $5000 retail CDP vs. a $20,000 CDP if you don't get it). Even if you own one or the other, it's not likely you'll get to hear them both at the same time, and thus the talk of the value of the cheaper player compared to a pricier unit is pretty useless. I have, through some miracle, heard both of the above players before, but not in the same room...and I still couldn't judge how great the SCD-1 is compared to the Sondek. Although I will say you get what you pay for with the Sondek, you want the most beautiful music you have ever heard coming from those little silver discs, fork over $20k.

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Here we get into "different strokes for different folks". No, the 9000 actually made its capabilities quite apparent right off the start through headphones...I actually took my R10s out to audition the 9000 before buying it, and I would've never bought it if I hadn't liked what I heard. I just regret I couldn't do the same with the Jupiter to begin with...that was 4 SACDs I could've bought with the shipping costs. I haven't even tried the 9000 yet out of speakers. So I guess what happen here is I'm just simply digging the 9000's tonal signature much more than the Jupiter's and the Denon's (I didn't even believe CDPs had their own sound signatures before the Jupiter and 9000), whereas the Jupiter and Denon's sound signatures were so similar (with the Jupiter undoubtly being better towards the end of the audition regardless of similarities) it took the physical realm of music to determine the differences.

Ultimately it's not so much that the Jupiter sucked...it just wasn't what I was expecting and looking for. I'd characterize the Jupiter as a player that sacrifices details in favor of musicality, whereas the 9000 is a better cross of the two. The SCD-1 IMO is totally the opposite of the Jupiter, sacrificing musicality for ultra detailed playback...I found it fun to listen to in as I was using an electron microscope for the first time on my CDs. But I agree with those that say the 9000 actually sounds more musical and timbrely accurate than the SCD-1. Then there's that Linn Sondek which is just an ultimate mix of sheer details with super sweet musicality that is to die for...

But without even talking about the sound, I figured if I had to spend $1000 on a player, I'd probably want nothing less than a player like the 9000, featurewise. I mean, look at what it can do over the other $1000 players.