I'm embarking on "upgrading" my CEC 3300 player and have made quite a bit of headway with mods I think I'd like to try, but before I do I have discovered something of a priority: Grounding! I think I have read other posts before about layout being an issue (big surprise) but I think I am finding that out for myself here. I have read up on jitter, xo's, etc. and have come across noise as being a major cause, among other things. While the player does sound pretty good as it is, there is tremendous room for improvement it looks to me. With long wire runs being typical in many layouts, one of these wires is usually a ground that has some resistance, and it's this resistance that is common to the whole board and all current must pass through it, both analog and digital. My plans starting out is to rig up a ground plane which is going to be a project in itself. With all the wire connectors used in such a player, I would have thought that one big board cut out with a ground plane would have actually been cheaper to make, but perhaps not. Anyway, I feel that correcting this layout is mandatory before embarking on any mods. When I first got into this project I got into regulation, jitter, etc. and it's easy to get taken up with it all. But my measurements using a wide BW scope told me that something was fundamentally amiss and I eventually tracked it down to the grounding being an issue, and that no mods I would do would really be taken fully advantage of without a proper grounding scheme, so I'm starting there. This post is just commentary is all, not sure what good it may do, but I don't think it will hurt either. This grounding is going to cost me nothing except time and just maybe the single biggest mandatory mod needing done, aside from cap upgrades. I also know for sure that without it, the player will never be it's best. So for those that want to mod a cd player or anything else, start with the free stuff first. You just may surprise yourself.