I believe that I went through:
Philips 373
Philips 373 into a Musical Fidelity Digilog DAC
Marantz CD52se
Arcam 7se
Pioneer DVD player into Meridian 203 DAC
Teac VRDS7
Naim CD5i
Pioneer DVD player into DS NOS DAC v1
Pioneer DVD player into DS NOS DAC v2
Pioneer DVD player into Bel Canto DAC2
Meridian 500 transport into Bel Canto DAC2
Modded Meridian 500 transport into Bel Canto DAC2
SB+ into Bel Canto DAC2
SB+
I've forgotten how many other CDPs and DACs I've heard along the way, but the list has included pretty much all the Naim units, some MF, Esoteric X03/X01, a few Wadias, Densen 400xs, Quad CD99, Behringer SRC and DEQ units, Benchmark DAC1, Beresford 7510. That's before you include less extensive listening whilst at the shows I've been to.
The best sounding to me was the X01, but then it was close to being the most expensive.
The best sound/£ was dependant on price. At the dirt cheap prices it would be a DVD player into a Behringer SRC2496. Above that it would be a s/h Quad CD99, then a Densen 400xs.
My key learning points have been that DACs are generally not the panacea that they seem to be. Introducing the SPDIF connection seems to add a level of problems that one box units don't face.
So for example, whilst I enjoyed my modded 500 into Bel Canto DAC2 combo, it was something of a shock to hear how much better then Densen 400xs was, despite costing a similar amount s/h.