I have a sim dealer close by and he asked if I would bring my meridian G08 to compare to his super nova in his sim stack. Both of us prefered the meridian. More musical with better 'prat'. I would say the only thing better about the super nova was it has a lower noise floor.
A couple of months later while I was demoing speaker cables my meridian started to have playback problems. The dealer loaned my his super nova while I sent the meridian in for service. In my system (bryston) I still prefered the meridian.
The only other player I demoed in my home was the esoteric sa-10. To me the esoteric had more detail which was great on great recordings but sterile sounding on recordings that were not so good.
So to me the esoteric was too detailed and lacked musicality and the super nova was in between.
Thats my opinion
A couple of months later while I was demoing speaker cables my meridian started to have playback problems. The dealer loaned my his super nova while I sent the meridian in for service. In my system (bryston) I still prefered the meridian.
The only other player I demoed in my home was the esoteric sa-10. To me the esoteric had more detail which was great on great recordings but sterile sounding on recordings that were not so good.
So to me the esoteric was too detailed and lacked musicality and the super nova was in between.
Thats my opinion