Best CD Trans. under 1,500

I am not familiar with the ARC unit you are considering. I have spent some time auditioning and owning different transports.
My vote for the best value in a used transport, providing it can still be serviced, would be the Theta Data Basic. Honorable mention would go to Parasound CBT 2000 which I bought because I could not fit the Theta in my cabinet.
For fun at a low price I would recommend the Aiwa XC37M changer which I bought for $90 at J&R Music World. You can only use a toslink cable on it (get the Monster Lightspeed 2M). This is a changer which is much better transport than its price indicates and it can be modified for better performance. Use the search mechanism to read the other threads on the Aiwa and other transports.

A used Theta Jade at $1100 - 1500 would do very nicely.

I'd recommend that you consider just a high quality CD player, rather than a transport and the DAC in the ACT-3. A used Cary 303 can be found at about the $1500 range. If you intend to get a much better DAC in the future, then the separate transport may make sense. However, a Electrocompaniet EMC-1 at about $2300 used, will compete with the best separates in the sub-$10K retail range. In reality, it competes quite well against my 20K+ Goldmund separates. Just my .02.