I remember the first Philips/Marantz machines used to give me a headache after an hour or so. Recording the disc onto a properly calibrated Nak cassette deck removed the fatigue* (that'll give you summat to laugh about
). The reviewer pal of mine had a good few machines through his hands and I visited him regularly too, so was able to try things we didn't sell in the store.
* Maybe the added noise-floor helped mask the distortions.
I had the first Micro-Mega machine to try at home - heavy perspex lid and brass weight to place on the disc with a really 'odd' sound I remember. What convinced me of the future of CD as a format was the B&O CDX (straight Philips with style aplenty and then the Mission DAD7000 (CD 104 in drag - the 104 came in two production runs, the later one with stripped out supplies and so on I remember). These two needed half an hour to 'warm up' (subjective memories) but were very neat and tidy in sound.
Next was the Meridian MCD, their take on an original Philips top loading chassis and finished in nextel. I found it a bit 'relentless' I remember but the 'MCD Pro' version with underslung added box did it superbly for me as the 'edge' had gone and this became my first CD player, which I kept until the 207 two-box player came along.
My reviewer pal had the Sony 502. 505 and add-on dac (701?) for review and it was fascinating to hear the gentle progress these machines appeared to make in terms of bass clarity and 'authority.' Maybe now I'd see this as expectation bias but at the time, the quality of sound at the top did seem to become more expansive. Around this time we had a 1610 pro A-D-A process or to play with and set like this and inserted into a tape loop, the sound wasn't changed at all. A pal had become a mastering engineer at this time and apparently, the editing stations were the huge culprits in early digital. Decca in London made their own which were better until Sony and others got their poo together in the early 90's and sorted it all out.
Coming up to date, I was given a mid to late 80's Philips 371 machine, with tacky plastic case and a couple of fancy caps on the audio output. This is where I realised that in a modern playback system, the 'sound' of cheaper early machines may not have been as 'bad' as I remembered.
Apologies if the above bores you lot to death.