Thank you both for your very informative replies. I am not very technically minded so I struggled a bit with some of what you said. I am not sure where to go from here now - maybe just stick with what I've got for the moment. One thing though, I dodn't think I'm going to get a NAD 545 BEE cd player - since last night I have come across so many reports and reviews, etc, elsewhere of them breaking down (including four today!), and having some kind of a design fault that gave them this vulnerability, something which NAD say they corrected later on. But whatever the case they don't seem to be very robust cd players, and they might well not have the right sound effect for me. The Marantz cd 8000 seies are outside my price range and I can't get my head around DAC's and the other - what seem to me - high tech options suggested!- Much as I appreciate the time and trouble that went into making these suggestions. I just want a smoother, not sharp,harsh, trebly, natural sound at a 'budget price'. Any further suggestions would be most welcome. And I don't think my B&W 685 speakers are the main problem at all. When I listen to my music through my Sennheiser HD 595 headphones or my Sony MDR XD 200 ones, the sound I hear is worse in the respects I don't like, and the same applies when I plug these headphones direct into the Marantz cd 6003, presumably by-passing the Yamaha A S700 amp - so maybe it's not the amp that's the main 'culprit' either! Is it something to do with modern hifi equipment, I wonder vaguely. I don't remember having these kind of sound problems, ie, the sharp trebliness, the harshness, etc, 30 or amybe even 20 years ago. Is modern hifi equipment, ie, outside either the very expensive - or the cheap all in one music centres, where there is less going on and therefore maybe less to go wrong? - just not designed any more with classical or acoustic music in mind? On this note on Monday, as well as over three years ago, just for the hell of it as I wa testing out different hifi combinations of separates in shops and not finding the sound I really liked the asistants tested me out on some much more expensive set-up's and every time I found these worse!! (In one way or another) I do know from Amazon reviewers and for a lot elsewhere that there has been a significant public decline in recent times in interest in classical music, and just maybe I wonder, the hifi market might have been reflecting this. Surprising thoughts to some of you perhaps, but thoughts nonetheless.....But to reiterate I really do appreciate the replies I have received to my two posts so far.