Meridian 808.v1 CD Player

The limited edition 808 —its full title is the "808 Signature Reference Compact Disc Player," as hand-signed by Stuart and Meridian designer and co-founder Allen Boothroyd —is said to offer the highest quality CD replay of any of the two dozen CD players produced by the company over the last two decades. At its heart is a multi-speed DVD-ROM drive capable of reading at standard and high speeds, an extremely useful feature for re-reading operations to overcome scratches and disc defects.
The 808 is what Meridian calls "a CD-optimized machine, able to play virtually any CD, from conventional pressings to CD-R, CD-R/W, and discs of MP3 files (64–256kbps)." It also plays the CD layer of an SACD, a format otherwise not supported by Meridian. It is plays DVD-A's and takes this format to its highest level. It is regarded by many to be the best player player around and highly regarded as a reference. Features both RCA and XLR / Balanced outputs.

 You will not do any better for the money.