There are many good things said about the TRL stuff, but the basic premise of spending $700 to mod a $200 (?) piece seems flawed. And in general I have a hard time investing heavily into any piece with mechanical transports or transports overall. Nearly all transports mechanisms are outsourced from the same handful of vendors/models. The transport in a $200 player probably cost Sony $10 and would be the weak link.
Same can be said of any high end CDP. Don't know the Mac, but the extreme tolerances needed to extract information from a disc makes mechanical transports very suspectible to wear and therefore failure. I'm sure McIntosh will stand behind their product for service well into the future, but the advancements in CD technology in the past few years continue to be very significant. The wear/advancement issues make one piece CDPs look like dinosaurs.
So the most cost effective route has been the cheap mechanical transport with a good DAC. Example: $170 Oppo universal player, $35 for digital cable, $600 for Channel Islands Audio DAC, $150 for their power supply upgrade provides a very good sound for under $1,000 and provides some of the best sound currently available. The Oppo hits well beyond its price point, is cheap enough be considered disposable, and is even better suited for the HT if/when you're ready to move on. This is just an example, you could spend more or less.
Another good option, and obvious wave of the future (that if you're computer savy you'd be ready for now), is using your computer to rip/store music with a wireless music server or wired USB compatible DAC (and use the computer for control). For instance you can pick up a pair of 500 GB hard drives for $300 (always backup) to store 1200 CDs and the new/very slick $400 Logitech Duet server (mods are being developed as we "speak") or $1250 for a Benchmark USB DAC. Again, lower priced options exist, but these are all pretty much top drawer stuff.
