I also am putting together a headphone system. I have the headphones but nothing else so far. With a budget of around $1000 you might consider the setup I have in my main system. For about $500 you can get the MSB Link DAC III with the 24/96 upsampling module and the Aiwa XC-37M five disc changer for another $80-$90. I compared this to my previous reference - a Roksan Caspian CD Player (~$1600). Both sound excellent; but one is nearly a 1/3 the cost of the other. Stan Warren has a mod for the changer that costs about $120; I haven't tried it yet. Your total cost is less than $750.
Best CD player for headphone setup
I am putting together a headphone system for my home office and am looking for suggestions for a CD player that would complement the other two components in the setup, a Headroom Max headphone amplifier and a pair of Sennheiser HD600 headphones. Some listening might also be done with my Grado SR225. My budget for a used player is $1000 +/- $250 (i.e. $750-$1250), but would prefer to stay towards the lower end. For reference, I listen to a lot of acoustic music, bluegrass, small combo and solo jazz, and some electric, early fusion, modern "jambands". Your thoughts would be sincerely appreciated, since it's been some time since I shopped for CD player in this price range.