Is my dealer lying to me?

This past weekend I went to listen to some speakers. I've been planning to buy CD player also, but that was not this weekend's purpose.

At first we were using a YMB player, McCormick amp, and Soliloquy 5.3 speakers. The speakers is what I was auditioning.

The CD player he is trying to sell me is the Cambridge Audio D500ES, I beleive. Price:400

Big difference I know between the YMB ($2500)and the Cambridge ($400). But it wasn't $2100 in difference in sound I can tell you that. What concerns me is the difference between his comments and the perceived opinions of people on this board. In other threads, there are quite a bit of "ditch the Cambridge" comments.

The dealers comments were "best player under $2000"... "chris sold his $2500 Theta and picked this one up because it's that good, and pocketed the money"... etc.

I'm not asking if this is the best player under $2000. But how does it compare to Arcam and Rega models at $500-700?

Obvisouly, he recommends the Soliloquy 5.3 also. I liked them but wasn't as impressed as much as I thought I would be. The guy has a small shop and seems honest, but it seems this cambridge is not very well respected in this forum.

I've gotten rid of alot of my gear. What I have left to use is a Yamaha RXV-995 receiver. An amp will come, hopefully sooner than later, but I need speakers and a CD player now unless I want to continue to use my DVD player for CDs.

Any comments?