Do many CD players also have digital inputs?

OOPS!!! That should have read that it has a digital input, but no digital output. Sorry... Sean
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The discontinued Denon DVD-5000 a THX Ultra Certified DVD player has optical and coaxial digital inputs for external digital audio sources.

Musical Fidelity, CD-pre24.
You can get a new/old stock unit for $1,000-$1,050.

I've owned several including the Musical Fidelity CD/Pre-24 and the Quad 99 CDP. The MF CD/pre-24 has a lot of additional functionality, including analog inputs, digital inputs and full blown pre-amp functionality. The Quad is sonically much better (IMHO) but has less functionality with only 6 digital inputs and remote controlled variable volume control.

So, in my book the Quad 99 CDP is King! It is sonically very good and it has digital inputs and variable volume control. If you only have digital sources, the Quad will allow you to get rid of a seperate pre-amp completely and connect the Quad directly to a power amp.

The Quad is $1495 new and sells for about $850-1050 used. Yes, it is outside of your price range, but if you also use it to replace an expensive pre-amp, it becomes a great value.

Enjoy,

TIC

This really is a fantastic forum. Thank you so much for the suggestions to date. I am really new to this and am trying to feel my way toward assembling a decent system.

With respect to the Adcom, as far as I can tell it only has an RCA (coax) input. Would someone recommend a toslink to RCA converter? The CO2? Chris Own of Ack! suggested a Monarchy DIP. Would that make a real difference over using the CO2 (which costs approx. $150 less)? With respect to the output, there's one for sale on this site that says that it has a digital ouput(?) Must be a modification(?)

With respect to the Denon, the reviews are really all over the map, with suggestions about poor build quality. Have you had any problems in that regard?

With respect to the Musical Fidelity, this is a fascinating product, and may be just what I need, although it may also be just out of my price range.

Would any of you recommend pairing any of the foregoing with a Decware Zen Triode? I'm really intrigued by this product. Nonetheless, being so new to this, I wonder whether I would be better served trying out a few used integrated solid state amplifiers to see whether my ears are good enough to tell the difference (and maybe the Zen doesn't have the power I would need).