Best redbook player for under $1000

Second the Quad 99 cdp. Had the Jolida and Consonance. The Quad is many steps ahead of Jolida, particularly in detail, which is the weak point of the Jolida. Until you hear good resolution you don't know what you are missing. (although more $, the gap narrows a bit for used units as the Jolida hype is not there with Quad). Quad is also better in musicality than Consonance but the Conso has more detail.

I am starting to believe tubes and cdps don't go together so well, but I don't have enough experience to back up that claim.

Another choice would be the Cary 303-100. A very good player and musical.

I would have to second the opinion of "Loudandclear", the Rega Apollo is a wonderful piece. I just received my unit for demo and have been burning it in for a few days. It's a beautifully detailed and musically fluid player. Something special is going on here and, to my ears, it easily beats anything I've heard under $1.5k thus far. I'm confident we'll be hearing alot about this player in the audio press over the next few months. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I believe Rega's Apollo is going to do for affordable cd playback what the Planar 3 did for affordable vinyl replay. Rega's even priced it less than their Planet 2000 : ) Stay tuned...
Happy Listening,
Robert at Audio Eden.

I would second the Eastsound E-5 CD Player - for under US$1,000, I believe this player offers fantastic value for money and has a tube like sound in the mid section.

Consonance CD-120 Linear.