[revault]

head-fi,
 
i'm looking for a cd player. it'll be hooked up to a harman kardon hk3500 stereo receiver, which has only analog inputs, so digital outputs aren't a necessity. remote inputs/outputs would be nice (3.5mm minijack), and it's important that it be able to play CD-Rs. should i go about buying a newer CD player (my budget is sub 100), or should i go for older CD players off of places like ebay?

 

[jaddie]

I feel your pain.  CD (only) players are all but gone from the market.  We've moved on.  What's being sold now are DVD players that play CDs, and BD players (universal disc players) that play everything.  The problem most of these have is you need a video connection to interact with the on-screen menu.  
 
I did find a Sony unit and an Teac unit on Amazon.com for around $100 that are real CD players.  Any player made in the last 10 years plays CDRs.  Just hit Amazon then search for CD Player.  The specialty guys like Audio Advisor have CD player too, but they are way above your budget.
 
The problem with older CD players is reliability.  Lasers age, and eventually age out.  I'd get something new, then make the transition to computer audio, you'll eventually be glad you did.

 

[revault]

I actually started out and continue with computer audio. most of my library is in FLAC (or anything above VBR MP3, usually 320kbps), but the few things i don't like about the computer as a music source are the higher noise floor (fans and all that stuff) and fiddling with the DAC (Asus Xonar DG). I list CD-Rs because I like to be able to backup my music on this format and then play it back on a silently spinning CD player. 

 

[jaddie]

Ok, that does make sense. There are a few advantages to using a good BD or DVD player. One is that several (Oppo, Denon and others) are mulit-format savvy, so SACDs can be played too.  And their DACs are quite nice, probably a tad better than the $100 CD player, though doubtful that's really audible. 
 
Just a thought on the PC noise, there are a lot of fan upgrades and other silencing mods. One source is: Quiet PC USA.  For me, the PC is in another room, and I network the digits to the listening space, keeps things quiet. Also gets around the balky DAC problem, network players seem to be pretty stable.