Philips 963 or NAD 541i

Thanks for the feedback guys, looks like the Philips 963 is the way to go for me. I haven't heard anyone concerned about the absence of balanced outputs on this unit? Is this a concern, or for $400 is it not expected?

Sounds good guys. Geographically, I live in an area without audio retailers close to audition several of the players recommended here and on other sites. What some people find great, others find contrary. I'm trying to decide between hi end (Krell KAV 300cd), mid-fi (NAD and Philips) and possibly going direct to my amp with Cary or Wadia. At some point I need to make a decision and go for it. Thanks again.

Thanks alot. I will plan on a power cord upgrade along with caps and possible Cardas reference ics. I'm also planning on running this direct to my amp with EVS nudes in place of my preamp.

www.tweakaudio.com will tell you all about them. They run $350 a pair and are used as a volume control for a source run directly into your amp, thus eliminating your preamp & cables. Being relatively new to hi end stuff, I'm not decided on a preamp yet (ss or tube) and I wanted a clean low cost altenative to a simple system. Of course, these would be used on a system that only has one source. I'm very pleased with the performance of my ss amp and tube cdp in this configuration. There are many posts here that discuss the advantages/disadvantages of this type of arrangement. Hope this helped.

I realized I never did complete this thread. I decided to go with a Jolida JD100 tube cdp in place of either the Philips or NAD. After further discussions here and elsewhere, it was the right call for me. Ultimately, after much discussion and auditioning, I wasn't comfortable with the build quality of the Philips and I wanted to move a step or two beyond the NAD, I feel the JD100 did that for me. Now I get to mess with tubes! I do appreciate the feedback.