CD Transport - budget in the order of £1500
Any suggestions?
Yes, I have a DAC already, but the "plan" is that it will be upgraded in due course.
Not sure what you are asking for, do you want to upgrade the cd player? If so I would not bother.
Seems an awful lot to be putting aside for a transport. They have no effect on end sound beyond working properly or not working. I'd buy something cheaper like a good blu-ray player, perhaps one of the Oppo's? And save money.
Yes I will be buying a Sony Blu-Ray dvd player soon for about £100, plug that into the DAC and it should be as good as most cd players, plus you can play sacds and dvds of course.
Yes, but one thing to bear in mind is that the Sony transport can be noisy when accessing a disc. I found this when I used my S370 a couple of years back and it was noticeable.
You can, by all means pitch the Blu-Ray player as a source and they'll be fine. That's not the tail end of the story though and while I like what my Spitfire II DAC and S370 did, the noisy transport (which Sony may have dealt with now of course) put me off.
There is of course, the rationale that not everyone wants a cheap source player. If you're not bothered with it, then no issues, but some consumers will want something different. It's important to be able to recognise that and not keep pitching the "you don't need a fancy CD player, you can get a cheap DVD player from Sainsbury's!*" line.
* - other supermarkets are available. 
Once you have your upgraded DAC, you can use your existing Cyrus CD8SE as a transport only just by connecting them with optical cable (or digital coax) ...
...this will bypass the player's built-in DAC and save you £1500. (Minus the cost of a digital cable).
if you like the synergy between your amp and speakers i think you would be a lot better off putting the cash into an m2/caspian amp, those spendors deserve that.
Use the coax output of your CD8SE to connect to a dac and that is as good a transport as you need - Servo Evolution mechanism after all. You're better off spending the money elsewhere.
Once you have your upgraded DAC, you can use your existing Cyrus CD8SE as a transport only just by connecting them with optical cable (or digital coax) ...
...this will bypass the player's built-in DAC and save you £1500. (Minus the cost of a digital cable).
That has not passed me by Chebby, and it is undoubtedly what will happen first after the purchase of a new DAC. I had previously considered getting a Cyrus QX 8 DAC and replacing my Roksan Kandy amp, but it didn't take many minutes of listening to the Cyrus on home loan to realise just how dreadful it sounds. The detail was amazing, but it wasn't anything I could enjoy listening to.
So whilst I appreciate that the CD transport in the Cyrus 8 SE is pretty damn good, I'm just exploring the options of what I could possibly do to better it.
There is of course, the rationale that not everyone wants a cheap source player. If you're not bothered with it, then no issues, but some consumers will want something different. It's important to be able to recognise that and not keep pitching the "you don't need a fancy CD player, you can get a cheap DVD player from Sainsbury's!*" line.
* - other supermarkets are available.
Thank you for your constructive comments. You are right, I do not want a DVD player or one of those blue things. I want a top quality CD transport for playing CDs. Suggesting I replace the CD 8 SE with a £100 multiplayer is quite simply ridiculous and I doubt it's Hi Fi either.
Off-topic (sorry) but I am a bit envious of that 'Inspired' Manticore. (I almost bought the original Mantra in the mid 1980s but went for a Walker CJ55 + RB250 instead.)
I also used the Goldring 1042 for 11 years (including two replacement stylii) on a Planar 3.
I can only imagine how good your TT/arm/cart must sound.
Once you have your upgraded DAC, you can use your existing Cyrus CD8SE as a transport only just by connecting them with optical cable (or digital coax) ...
...this will bypass the player's built-in DAC and save you £1500. (Minus the cost of a digital cable).
+1 Chebby beat me to it again. Save your money.
I suggest tyou look into much more, quite afew people in the industry are saying things like that. If you want to spend £1500 on a cd transport that is upto you but many are no better than a cheap cd player.
Any suggestions?
If you want to upgrade - look at moorgate accoustics web site. They have some refurb Cyrus top CD transports at a very good price
There have been several articles about expensive cd players or transport and most seem to say that it is a waste of money to spend loads on a cd transport, you have a DAC already?
Marantz 63SE AVI ADM9RSS