SACD vs RBCD players

The Ayre C-5xe, especially with the new MP upgrade, is excellent with both SACD and RB. In fact, it clearly shows that some well-recorded titles sound better than many SACDs. But the best SACDs played on it are something to treasure.
The C-5xe will also play DVD-Audio discs, some of which are really good, but it struggles with the DVD-A menu.

The Exemplar and APL modded Denon 5910s and 3910s will play all discs except blu-rays and in some ways are better than the non-MP C-5xe.

If you want to stick with just RB, the Ayre C-7xe, especially with the MP upgrade, is phenominal for the money.

Hope this helps.

I have not measured my listening time to analog-RBCD-SACD/DVD-A, but my impression is that my listening time is close to 50/50 analog-digital (about half the time, I want to listen without the interference of jumping up to lift the arm at the end of an LP side). Some of my digital listening, however, is DVD-V concerts. I have about 700 LPs, 200 RBCDs, 50 SACDs, 10 DVD-As and 12 DVD-V concerts. The concerts I watch maybe 5% of the time, and I don't have a clue how the rest of my digital time is divided among RBCD, SACD & DVD-A. But if I have the same album in both RBCD and hi-res disc, I always go for the hi-res. Vinyl still rules (it is always so much richer sounding), but digital is closing the gap.

I was contemplating keeping my Exemplar Denon 5910 universal player and replacing my Ayre C-5xe with an RBCD only player like the ARC CD 8 because I thought the Ayre and the Exemplar, while different, were pretty close and the Exemplar is wonderful with my DVD-V concerts as well as movies. But then I sent the C-5xe back to Ayre for upgrading to the MP, and now I like it too much to part with it.