Hey, buying that wine is why my wife also lets me buy headphone equipment. No way I'm stopping that.
I bought a used eXemplar Denon 2900 for $1400. I sent it to John Tucker @ eXemplar and he added the latest two upgrades for $450. So I have a maxed out (as of October 2007) eXemplar 2900 for $1950.
At the same time, Matt of SACDMods was doing his thing to my Eastsound CD-5. In fact, that's my machine on his web site. The additions he made to the CD-5 really improved it, but it doesn't come close to the eXemplar. If I had to give one up, it would be the CD-5.