Best sounding player under $3500 Used ?

used Mephisto IIx transport + orignal Meitner/Melior Data II (John Wright-modded Bitstream) dac. Oops! Sorry- that's not a 2-box solution, but that's most likely what I would do with $3,500 max...

I agree with all of what is posted above but there is really no best CDP. They all have a different sound and you have to hear each in your system to see what works for you. I know it is hard to do, but that is the only way I could tell what was best to me. I recently did a DAC comparison and had the Audiomeca Mephisto II.X used as a CDP and as a transport with the DACs along with a very higly modded Shanling and stock Sony SCD-777ES. I prefered some of the DACs sound to every CDP we threw into the mix. The Electrocompaniet threw the widest soundstage and is very detailed, the Ameca is more lush/warm sounding but no like a tube unit, the modded Shanling bettered them all but again it was a special highly modded version that you cannot find on Agon. The Audio Logic DAC was clear and sweet and the Chord 64 DAC was excellent also. But again each has pluses and minuses that you have to hear in your system to understand. All of the above suggestions are excellent.

Happy Listening.

Resolution Audio kicks ass at any price. It makes music better than any player that is musical. Get it? But I haven't listened to them all.

I have had too many cd players to list! The best that I have heard to date has been the Meridian 508.24. It does everything right! It beat out my Levinson 37 that I used to have. With this unit you stop anaylizing the music and just sit back and enjoy it. Isn't that the way it was meant to be? They can be found for under 2k on Audiogon.