I think the Marantz SA-1, SA-14, and SA-11 are all quite good. Denon also has some great players, especially modded, for not huge money. Esoteric is also good bang for buck used. I still get excellent music out of my stock Sony SCD-777ES, which also gets me SACD. There are a whole raft of mods available for this one too. Out of those mfrs, the only one I would absolutely count on remaining in existing format in 6 years' time would be Sony. Denon and Marantz are D&M Holdings, just taken over by a private equity deal (where the debt matures in less than 6 years) and Esoteric is a brand of TEAC, where the listed company is somewhat heavily indebted. That said, in any bankruptcy reorg, those brands and at least some of their engineers are likely to be around in a new life for the brand - just the equity owners will lose out.
The good thing about widely modded players is that there is a large community of people who could probably fix it in a jam.
That said, if I were in your shoes, I'd go the music server + DAC route. My bet is that Logitech will be around for a while, and DACs don't have moving parts to wear out. And if you want to upgrade later, that should be easy too.
The good thing about widely modded players is that there is a large community of people who could probably fix it in a jam.
That said, if I were in your shoes, I'd go the music server + DAC route. My bet is that Logitech will be around for a while, and DACs don't have moving parts to wear out. And if you want to upgrade later, that should be easy too.