ML no39, Wadia 850, Classe 1.0, or Sony?

The Resolution Audio CD50 is the best buy. They can be had used for around $1600. If you only listen to bright popular music and never to well recorded music, however, then the Wadia's rolled off treble might better equalize today's "translatable to boombox" pop music.

Have you read reviews of any of these? It might give you some idea of how they perform, although the reviewer usually doesn't compare one directly with another. Sometimes they do...I think it was either The Inner Ear, or The Audiophile Voice that reviewed the CD50 about a year ago. (There are many others for it.) The Wadia 850 was reviewed in Stereophile about 2 years ago. I'm not sure about the Classe player, but SPHL reviewed the Classe DAC-1 about 5 years ago. There are many reviews of the Sony just about everywhere. I don't recall seeing any of the ML 39, but I'm sure there are several.

CD50, $1600 or less, used. I just don't see any of these beating it in any way. You don't even need to spend a lot on a preamp, since you don't need one. I wish you were in my area, you could hear mine.