I have a suggestion for you.
IMO, none of these are even close to touching the APL 4.0SE. There is a potential work-around however, because I have done it. I have an Esoteric UX-1 upgraded by Esoteric to UX-1Pi and am using it with an APL prototype SUPER-DAC that Alex recently made for me. It a one of a kind at this point and has pretty much everything that's in the 4.0SE - 20 2nd generation 32-bit AKM DACs per channel, upsampler, double tube Class-A output stage, etc., etc. Alex is supposedly going into production at some point on a lesser DAC - you might drop him a line and see what comes of it. I also have a Denon he modified into a 32-bit DAC, as do several others here on Agon.
You can pick up a used UX-1 or X-01 here on Agon for $5-6K, (containing a better transport (VRDS) IMO than any of the players you mentioned) and have a shot at world-beating sound without paying an arm and a leg when combined with an APL DAC. Just a suggestion.
I will say that I heard NOTHING at CES several weeks ago that touched my front end, and that includes all the usual suspects and stacks, regardless of price. Peychev's implementation is really THAT GOOD.
IMO, none of these are even close to touching the APL 4.0SE. There is a potential work-around however, because I have done it. I have an Esoteric UX-1 upgraded by Esoteric to UX-1Pi and am using it with an APL prototype SUPER-DAC that Alex recently made for me. It a one of a kind at this point and has pretty much everything that's in the 4.0SE - 20 2nd generation 32-bit AKM DACs per channel, upsampler, double tube Class-A output stage, etc., etc. Alex is supposedly going into production at some point on a lesser DAC - you might drop him a line and see what comes of it. I also have a Denon he modified into a 32-bit DAC, as do several others here on Agon.
You can pick up a used UX-1 or X-01 here on Agon for $5-6K, (containing a better transport (VRDS) IMO than any of the players you mentioned) and have a shot at world-beating sound without paying an arm and a leg when combined with an APL DAC. Just a suggestion.
I will say that I heard NOTHING at CES several weeks ago that touched my front end, and that includes all the usual suspects and stacks, regardless of price. Peychev's implementation is really THAT GOOD.