I had trouble with the 39.99 Philips DVP. The DVP threw noise into my system from the moment the DVP's power was turned on. Frank hypothesized that the DVP was throwing some RF into the system; someone else hypothesized that the DVP's cheap switching power supply was throwing dirty AC into the line. Either way, the fix was easy. I hooked up a 21 year old CDP as a transport, and, voila, audio bliss. Needless to say, I got rid of the Philips DVP. I am currently using a Marantz CD5001 without any problems. There are some good deals on CDPs on a'gon, but if you want to buy a brand new piece, I don't have any complaints about the Marantz @ 299.00, which included shipping. I am sure that there are better transports, but the Marantz will get the job done until Frank decides to produce a transport.
I also use Blue Jeans Cable's interconnects.