To upgrade or not to upgrade

Let me first disqualify myself; I am not trying to save you money.

I have a Meridian 508.24 and I have occasionally pondered a similar question. The thing is, after listening to other CDPs in various listening rooms (Wadia, Ayre, Krell, ML, Classe), I concluded that I could spend more money, but that the return on listening pleasure would not be equivalently increased. So I remain very happy with my CDP and don't perceive a need to change what "ain't broken." Plus, when I close my eyes and just listen, I don't feel that there is anything missing musically that I would want to be able to "pull off the sonic shelf" that isn't readily apparent.

Those ML components you own were and still are state of the art in design and execution in many ways. They also provided the reference hoops for countless other to try and jump through. And they are future classics. My guess is that you could change over to an even higher price/performance point and still end up missing your ML gear on a purely emotive level. Unless you have auditioned something that has really gotten under your skin, and you are absolutely certain it provides greater listening enjoyment, I would keep what you have.

i too am biased in favor of mark levinson digital as i have a #37 transport AND a 360s dac. i recently upgraded my cables at considerable expense, and if anything they revealed how good my front end already is- a huge increase in resolution of fine details and a much deeper soundstage WITHOUT an increase in etch or grain that i can detect. it's not that i don't want to know what $65k in esoteric digital can do that my components can't, but simply put i have a startlingly musical system already. and what's going on with all of these EMM pieces up for sale (cdsd and the dac)- what in blazes are these audiogoners getting that's significantly better than that?! i just don't know anymore, but a friend keeps telling me that the future in digital will be in the form of hard drives and sd cards. I would have been happy with a library full of sacd's recorded/processed as well as Reference Recordings/prof.johnson did with HDCD.
but that's not going to happen either. i want to embrace the future, as long as it has something to do with the absolute best sound possible with full industry support of the same- but i have nagging doubts that will happen.

Thanks Steve and French_fries
Yes I will keep the ML gear and simply add an sacd player. The players that I will try are the AYRE , SONY SCD-1 and the LINN UNIDISC. I have heard the KRELL and during the trial period it acted up big time. NO THANKS. I know that the sony is old but I will see if the mods are are really as good as some other Goners say they are. Any help,thoughts or opinions would be appreaciated.
Thanks