Best CD

What about an alternative to your wife?

The Sony ES changers are good for this - they have a 400 CD capacity and run very well. I play mine into a fairly nice system and enjoy them immensely. -Kirk

Thought about setting up a music server? Digital out from the sound card to the dac. Ripping mass amounts of CD's can be something of a chore, but once it's done, you could put all your CD's in storage...

Would be a shame to use all that high end gear on a format like MP3.

Marantz makes/made? a high capacity changer, and I feel would make a good transport. Sony as mentioned previously, or Denon. I can't say if any of these would really be an improvement on the Pioneer, as the Elite line is pretty solid, but if you got the time and money, try them out.

I'm interested in nearly the samething. I'm setting up a system for the kids playroom so they grow up hearing real music. Since the eldest is 3 yrs. old. Although she quite capable with the DVD player, I don't want them handling cds or have a bunch of jewel boxes floating around.

I'm going mid-fi; a used NAD C740($150), Ascend CMB 170s($300), and then I'm wondering who has the better transport in a sub $300 mega-changer to mate with a used DAC(around $100) from agon. In my case a 100+1 changer should be sufficent.

Murphthelab- Do you have connections for another component? If so maybe the solution is a nice single disc transport for yourself and still use the Pioneer for the disc storage and your wife.