I'm finally throwing in the towel & never looking for another CD again. After months of trying various $500 to $1500 CD players, I've come to the obvious conclusion that my Pioneer PD-59 sounds best for my taste on my system. The audio frequency's on the PD-59 seem to be the only ones that are totally in sync with my brains & ears & the best sound for this no matter what anyone says is an optic cable plugged directly into my Denon 3801 receiver which is connected to Orb Audios 5.1 Mod 1 System & Sub. I listen to this in the all 5 channel natural stereo mode. Today, I tried out & hopefully will break even & resell soon an Ah Njoe Tjoeb Super 4000 modified tube CD player with an upsampler attached as well as other positive modifications. This retails for around $1400 with tax & shipping but only cost me $875 & it was in very good condition with everything. Anyway, this CD player sounded real good, don't get me wrong, but I still preferred the sound to my Pioneer. I tried this player with both analog connections (sounded better & digital). While this player & several of the other expensive players I tried spread the sound a bit more, the problem to my ears is by spreading the sound, it also thinned it out, if that makes sense. The PD-59 too me gives a nice thick sweet sound that you can groove too & I haven't found that with another CD player. I'm willing to concede that maybe for my ears & equipment as well as setting, this gives me the best sound. Sometimes you never appreciate what you have!