Good CD Player to mod/tweak?

What do you wanna mod in 720 AE?
Personally i do expect digital readers to be perfect so that I can use tubes and tapes to destroy their perfection in a very predictable way.
I have also a Marantz cd 5000 and a cd 72 🙂
Sorry, but I would not regard either of those machines as 'the best' of old school or for musicality. Just my personal opinion, I don't wish to offend. It's winter soon, maybe a little TDA1541A project? 🙂
Best wishes.
 
Thanks for the whole info guys, I have a lot of info to read.

I have an Onkyo R-N855 receiver so I got the opportunity to buy the matching CD player (Onkyo C-755) which for me sounds very good the only thing is that there's not much information about it.. and not sure why because this Onkyo pair is a great sounding compact system

I'm already researching what you guys suggested and I will probably go for the Denon if I find it at good price!

Cheers!
 
My classic Philips CD150 had problems from new and never did work reliably. I once listened to a Severed Heads CD skipping for an hour before I went downstairs and stopped it. I'd suggest paying $10 for a thrift store DVD or Blu-ray player as a transport and put your money and effort into an interesting DAC. Or, add a display and controls to a computer optical drive that has S/PDIF out, and then wrap a beautiful box around it. (see IDE CDROM controller at Aliexpress)
Or hunt down one of the rather rare CD portables that included digital out. Radio Shack had one that went viral with audiophiles.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/radio-shack-optimus-cd-3400-portable-cd-player-tellig-again
 
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Certainly not the best nor the most reliable of the family.
The cd150 is soft and slow and the cdm2 suffers from several problems according to its "subfamily" "black plastic or white plastic". nothing to do with a somewhat recent model based on CDM4 and TDA1541 like the 471 or 473.
I haven't played with the PS1 and different CD-ROM players, it works very well too.
 
The resin/glass fibre frame used in CDM2s per se is definitely not bad by any standards and the mechanics do NOT have any problems at all. Where do these myths come from? CDM2 is a thousandfould more reliable than CDM12.x
 
The resin/glass fibre frame used in CDM2s per se is definitely not bad by any standards and the mechanics do NOT have any problems at all. Where do these myths come from? CDM2 is a thousandfould more reliable than CDM12.x
I don't think people are comparing radial tracking arm mechs with straight line travel mechs. Just what might be best within the radial tracking range. To me, CDM1 reigns there. (Not CDM1MK2) though this is also good as are all the radial arm mechs.)) I've only ever had a few caps go weak, and the odd dry/broken joint. Laser diodes seem to last well.
Just my 2d's worth.
 
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also there's a big thread regarding the Marantz CD63/67.
I just found a nice CD-67SE, which I expected to mod a little, seeing some of that thread. But after seeing how nice and original it is and not really expecting the analog output to ever get good enough, I think I'll just run the optical out to a decent DAC.
The CD-67SE was on my list for having a nice track (1-20) display (dimmable), headphone jack, and direct track entry buttons.