A Low Cost Pleasant Sounding Used CD Player?

I have the Oppo BDP-103 Onkyo 7030 and the Cambridge CXC, and aside from the CXC being solely a transport there is a large and notable improvement in quality (clarity, soundstage) between the three - with the CXC a clear winner, the Oppo very close behind and the Onkyo taking a distant third. 

The CXC is a little more sensitive to disc quality and I found it lagged behind my new DAC (Pontus 15th) - which was demanding a better timed output than the CXC can manage.  Still, below $500, these are all decent options.  I now run a Jay’s Audio CDT2 (zero timing issues), an order of magnitude improvement over the CXC - huge leap - but comes at a stiff price.  Oppo is a workhorse but all are old and used now.

I’m confused.  You ask for a CD player but then say you’ll be using a DAC. Which is it?  With a DAC I’d be looking at the Shanling ET3 that gets good reviews, but I’d look into reliability because I think I’ve seen it has had some problems. Whichever way you go, best of luck. 

soix: I feel a bit on the defence - sorry for your confusion but I was initially looking for reccomendations of a simple replacement CD player until someone suggested using just a transport, which is possible since I own a DAC.

For a couple of CDs a month though, the Shanlin is a tad pricey, certainly if reliability might be an issue. (Been there, done that - à la Linn!) I was thinking of something around $500 used. The Sony transport might be a good bet as it gives me a wide variety of media formats to explore. 

Thanks to everyone for taking my request to heart and sharing their personal favourites.

I have a couple of Musical Fidelity CD players that I bought inexpensively used and sound nice and detailed.The most I paid was $500.00 for a big beast , the A5, their cd player from some time ago. I am not using them now, but you could do worse. If my current option failed me, I'd switch back to the MF's without hesitation.

Best of luck out there. You have many options to choose from.

The Cambridge CXC Transport is often available direct from Cambridge as a refurb at a great price. The V1 and V2 of the CXC are sonically identical...for 1 or 2 CD's a month, an old DVD player as a transport sometimes can work great...