Best CD sound: Marantz SA8001 or Rega Apollo?

Daltonlanny,
I don't know why but very few people have anything to say about the 8001. I posted something about the 8001 about a year ago...again it was very very little (i'll just assume not many have it).

ANyway I bought one last September I think it was. I liked the 8001. I bought it to replace an SA8260, that to me was nice and warm, good sounding for the money, but I wanted to try the new one. The 8001 is far more transparent and open than the 8260. I really have nothing bad to say about it at all. FOr the money its probably one of the best, if not the best. To have SACD added, is a real bonus, and for that reason I skipped the Rega. I don't have anything to add about the compare/contrast to the Rega as i have no exp with the apollo. Anyway I wish Stereophile would do something like sub 1000 players shootout. That would be very useful.
I have since moved on the NAD M5 CD/SACD player. I really like this player, but its 2x the price. Is it 2x as good (I have no idea on how one could measure such a thing)? Probably not, but therein lies the rub.

4est
That is plain poo poo. The NAD M5 SACD outs sounded better than my Squeezebox driving a late model Benchmark DAC1. Not to my ears alone but the the DAC 1s owner as well as another dudes. On redbook it was much closer and would really require days to evaluate.

BTW my squeezebox has a massively upgrade power supply.

Of course the convenience of the SB3 is unbeatable, but you need a really great DAC to "blow away" a GOOD cdp.