Strangely enough, reviews I have at hand show that not many did hear the CD-803 as much better-sounding than lesser players... Perhaps the format was new enough to keep the sound of it offstage.
For a while. The CD-803 was part of the cream of the 1st generation CD player crop but strangely didn't sell nearly as well as the Yamaha CD-1 or Sony CDP-701ES...
A full in-house development, the CD-803 was surprisingly -and very briefly- rebadged as a Teac DL-700.
Inside is part Toshiba (laser block), part Sony (digital ICs), part bloody STK6922 ICs but mostly NEC with its own drive and digital filters.
The latter, then, represented a fair chunk (if not half of-) the price of any player - and NEC made its own !
Ultra-High tech all this was and we're so used to it nowadays that it still is a little difficult to remember that it really was.
Much more about the CD-803 at the indispensable vintage-audio-laser.com.