Have your say & ask the experts

I love the chord crimson, but since you're a rock and blues man, I'd stay away from it as it's a little bass shy in favor of high end detail. 

I'd be buying the Merlin Mozart.  Top rated and very affordable.  Plus a money back guarantee.  No brainer (as we like to say)...

Andrewknight, what CDP would you recommend to replace the Sony, on a max budget of £350, and why?

Thanks for the tip, Jaxwired.  I hadn't picked up on the money-back guarantee.  Best get on to Merlin, then.

andrewknight:

The why is easy, I reckon your current setup could do justice to a much better cdp.
Suggesting a new cdp could be trickier, nice budget tho.
New stuff isn't my bag so I'll come up with some secondhand options. I'm having a dns problem on my modem at the moment and using my Blackberry for ebay is a nightmare so I shall have a look tomorrow.
If anyone else wants to suggest some new cdp's in budget feel free.

Thanks for that, Andrewknight; much appreciated.  I have been thinking of upgrading the hardware, including the player.  Up to now, I was looking at the Marantz CD6003, which I can presently get for £270.  But I've noticed today that Richer are offering graded versions of the Cambridge Audio Azur 740C for £399, which is an absolute bl00dy steal!  I can probably push to that, so will do some phoning around tomorrow.

 Then I can get the other half to buy my some Merlin interconnects for Christmas!

The more I think about it, the more I'm liking the idea of the CA 740C.  It's got one hell of an upsampling DAC, and I can feed the DAB tuner through it as well.

Roll on 11am tomorrow; opening time at Richer!

OK, so Richer didn't have any graded 740Cs at any branch anywhere near me, and £500 for a pristine BNIB one was not within reach.  So I've gone with the Marantz CD6003, which my local indie let me have for £269.  It's up and running, and already, I'm enjoying it a lot more over the Sony old faithful. Better tonal balance (The Sony was always a bit forward and metallic with its treble), better timing and lots more detail.  Plus, it has a non-captive mains lead.  Just need to update the Harmony to control it.

I'll give it a while to run in, then use the money left in my budget to add a Merlin Mozart interconnect and a Clear Audio Copperline Alpha mains lead in the New Year.

 Thank you Jaxwired and Andrewknight respectively for the guidance.

I would get onto ebay and look for a Chord Power Chord mains cable, over the alpha.

I started with alpha, and it's good, then borrowed a friends Chord superscreen, which was better. It was a more mature sound,but lacked treble detail compared with the alpha.

Bought a Chord power chord off ebay for around £70, and omg......truely amazing sound that makes me smile each time I sit down and listen to a cd.........combines the alpha detail and superscreen maturity, and then some......

Forgot to say......got the Merlin Mozart too.

Highly recommended , in my opinion......