Which Vintage CD Player To Use As A Transport?

CEC TL-1x. A monumental transport! Neal

Technics SL-P550. It also has a digital output.

I still use a Denon DVD-2900 transport in my main rig and a Pioneer DV-F727 300-disc carousel in my office.  The Denon has digital and 5-channel analog outputs as well.  It's a very substantial, nice unit.

@paul6001  Do you own the DAC and are now looking for a transport or do you need to purchase both Items? 

If you own the DAC I see no problem finding a CD player having digital output to use with it. Issue is that the first thing that fails with older cd players is the pickup laser and transport mechanism. 

There seems to be much support for the Onkyo C7030 player if one could be found used. 

I’d have to buy them both. The Schiit DAC is $115.00.

But this is Plan B and it seems like too much work. I think that I’m going back to Plan A and getting as much used CD player as I can get for about $200. The current frontrunners are the Cambridge Audio Azur 651C and the Yamaha CD-S300. Any preferences between them?

Other possibilities are a bit older: The Arcam CD72 and the Rotel RCD-951 (and various other Rotel models).

When it comes to electronics, especially digital electronics, I can’t help but think that newer is better. That’s certainly true with computers and aren’t CD players kinda alt-computers?

Someone is sure to point out that CD technology really hasn’t changed much since [whenever]. But there seems to be no debate that DAC technology has moved forward significantly so I question that premise.

Of course, the reason I’m in this bind is because my Denon 32 bit player died after only two years. (More bits! Better tech!) Talk about cheesy.