Tom, I got to page 6 where you suggested selling the CD player.

I know this what you are doing is all fun and gives you the opportunity to play with new toys, but trust me on this if for nothing else.

You will seriously regret selling the CD player, there is a £3000 quid difference and its something you will realise once you no longer have the funds.

I did all this, I lived with it for a while, I swapped out dacs, changed settings imported CDs with no compression, changed leads etc etc etc, in the end I had to save up and get a second hand CDX to get any where near the quality I had become accustomed to.

With a CDS2 it will be even harder for you, at the very least sell the CDS2 get a second hand CDX and go from there.