13 going 30.

The DV-60 is a pretty good player, but the upgrade here will not be as significant as going to the X-03 or X-03 SE. You would be better off buying a used X-03 SE vs. the DV-60. You can expect to pay about $4K for a fairly recent, excellent condition 03SE and get a lot of performance. The X03 is much better than the DV-60.

Nas,

I have lived with an Esoteric DV-50 and a Denon 5910CI for a couple years now. They are different players. I clearly prefer the Esoteric to the Denon, as evidenced by the Denon living in the bedroom system and the Esoteric more often in the main rig in the living room.

The Esoteric is more detailed and has much better bass control, especially on SACD's. The Esoteric offers more air and separation as well, and for the price of $2K (A DV-50s in on the gon now for this) they are a steal, I paid $4,500 for mine new and still think it was a buy at that!

You also get the benefit of much better build quality with the Esoteric, though it has a hard power button so you can't turn it on and of remotely.

To be $2500 poorer. Is this a trick question?

Kennyt,
Since the DV-50 does not have HDMI output, how would you please rate its picture quality with the Denon 1080p?
FYI: I only have Denon DVD-5910 (non-Ci)

Go hear the new Sony SACD player before you go with the Esoteric or Denon. with the hdmi output and the xlr connectors you will be surprised. On regular cd's Sony flag ship now beats Esoteric, any model, hands down. So, listen you must. Also, it is easy to put in your system and then return if you are not blown away. If you like it, your savings will be enough to buy over 100 SACD's. It really is all about the music software.

Nas,

I currently have four Blu-ray players and still have my Toshiba HD-XA2 HD DVD player in my rig, so I don't use the Esoteric for video at all, I use the Toshiba HD XA2, it's the best scaling DVD player I've ever had, better than the Denon too. I only use the DV-50s for CD's/SACD/DVD-A.

If you buy the DV-60, you will of course have a 1080p scaling player, which I suspect would do a very good job as well, but lets be real, it's almost 2009, Blu-ray players are selling for <$200 routinely and occasionally <$100, so I try to watch only NATIVE 1080p whenever possible!

Oh yes, indeed and I've been waiting. BlueRay is growing and sure should we. But if the latest Denon BlueRay 3800, the Marantz, and the latest $2K Sony ES player have the capabilty to produce sound just as good as these high-end "universal" players, I'm up for it. Not to mention that none of those BlueRay can play SACD.
I have tested couple BlueRays when they first came out and their sound quality did not meet my listening standard.

Nas,

Did you run them through something that could decode the new codecs? I doubt so because if you did you would not have said that!

A Sony unit outperforms ANY Esoteric? While I am all for creative writing this is a hard pill to swallow. Being this I have heard nobody else say this leaves some doubt but if its true surely this will come out in time.

>>On regular cd's Sony flag ship now beats Esoteric, any model, hands down<<

No fooling?

Please list all of the Esoteric players you've heard along with the associated components during evaluations with the Sony.

Also give a detailed explanation of each comparison as a result of the auditions.

This should be interesting.

Guys,

Not to add to this Sony/Esoteric debate, but I happen to have the original version of the Developmenti Blu-ray (DTS HD MA and Dolby TrueHD) and SACD hybrid discs, I played the Blu-ray in a Sony PS3 outputting LPCM to my pre/pro and used my Esoteric with the SACD and the Blu-ray was clearly better, now I know this is comparing two vastly different formats, but........