Trestles, I don't know if they still have it, or if you are interested, but the Arcam FMJ CD23 I tested (not a 23T) was a demo model they were selling at Accent on Music in Mount Kisco, New York. I felt bad not buying it after the taking it home to demo it.
I A/B tested it at home vs. my Denon DVD-5910 and found my 5910 was much better sounding (probably because of the new Burr-Brown 1792 chips -- seems anything with these chips is much better than previous generation chips on the market in the same price ranges, the Ayre C-5xe is another example which also uses 1792s -- for instance all the items that have the chip seem to be getting A ratings or top ratings in whatever class they are in, which to me seems a sure sign that the chip itself has more to do with it than any individual engineering done by a company using the chip). If you are willing to spend 1k more after finding a 12% discount you can have the Denon 5910 which will play everything including CD, and I find the CD on it worlds better than the Arcam 23... That's just my 2 cents worth.
I A/B tested it at home vs. my Denon DVD-5910 and found my 5910 was much better sounding (probably because of the new Burr-Brown 1792 chips -- seems anything with these chips is much better than previous generation chips on the market in the same price ranges, the Ayre C-5xe is another example which also uses 1792s -- for instance all the items that have the chip seem to be getting A ratings or top ratings in whatever class they are in, which to me seems a sure sign that the chip itself has more to do with it than any individual engineering done by a company using the chip). If you are willing to spend 1k more after finding a 12% discount you can have the Denon 5910 which will play everything including CD, and I find the CD on it worlds better than the Arcam 23... That's just my 2 cents worth.