Top 5 sounding cd player in the 1000-2000$ range

What about Ric Schultz' modded Oppo 980 with the 32bit DAC and upsampling, running on a Supeclock, etc ? This the same DAC used by Alex Peychev in his 32K+ player. It should be killer. Check it out on his EVS website tweakaudio.com.

Rega Saturn
Modwright 999ES
Exemplar denon 2900
Cambridge 840c
Underwood modified Shanling
You should be able to find any of these used in your budget. I have heard or home auditioned all but the Cambridge and they are all very good redbook players.

After recently auditioning several CD players under $2500 and doing a lot of research (reading reviews, etc.), I would have to say that the Cambridge Audio Azur 840c (which is what I bought) is the best CD player I have heard for under $2500 (check out Robert Harley's excellent review in TAS). Also, I found the Marantz SA8001 to be an excellent performer and it's under $1000 (it got into "Recommended Components" under "A" in Stereophile's Recoomended Components too). It really shines as an SACD player but can also hold it's own with regular redbook CDs.

I had Cambridge Audio 840C in my system for a while. Although it really is fantastic, I heard this sheen or glare in the upper registers, and couldn't live with it. It's a very smooth player, though, and it may have been a lack of system synergy or what have you, but whatever. I was happy with the Playstation 1 for all this time, and still intend to keep it. Now I'm running Consonance CD120T Linear, which is bloody fantastic for the price (a little less than $1K); for my tastes, it's better than what I got out of 840C. I also LOVED Primare CD31, which could be had in Audiogon for around $1600-1700. Other than those players, I can't really think of others.

check out an old Meridian 508 series. very good, smooth presentation.