Dedicated Red Book CD player vs. "Universal" type players....

This pricey Hegel  Mohican looks like a fine CD only player. Their amps are stellar and they've been in the CD only player business for a while.

http://www.hegel.com/products/cd/mohican

http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/hegel-music-systems-mohican-cd-player/

This is a topic I've been thinking about just recently.  While there are some dynamite universal players in the business (I have two and love them both), I still want to add a pure Red Book CD only player to my system.  Looking now at various options.  Universal players have to at least have two laser diodes, one to read Red Book CDs and the other for Blu-ray discs.  Each read in a different color spectrum. This then requires more circuitry and signal paths than a single dedicated CD player has.  So why not have one of each if you can swing it?  Keeps the hobby interesting and you don't have to spend thousands for great audio.  

I had an 8005 in my system this Summer for 2 weeks, sold it and purchased a McIntosh.  I didn't like the very small buttons on the player and the controls felt cheap to me.  The sound was fine but I wanted a McIntosh to match the rest of the system.

May I ask which McIntosh player you purchased?  Did you purchase it brand new? 

"Does a one-box solution sacrifice some cd playback performance trying to be a jack of all trades? If so, can you hear that difference? Input and comments most appreciated!" 

Glad you got the Marantz, but yes, "jack of all trades" Oppo will get you ok performance for A/V, but not great performance from any one thing that Oppo does. I've lived and learned this. dedicated CDPs are best, b/c they specialize in their one goal: Audio and support it with better/more appropriate audio hardware. 

The Esoteric Universal is several thousand more$$ than the Oppo, so not a realistic comparison. The Esoteric Universal sounds great b/c they put better hardware in one package than the Oppo, and this costs much more$. 

The Mohican is $4000, so again, not the fairest comparison to either Oppo or the Marantz or even another $1k dedicated CDP. 

And again, the Marantz 8005 is chump change $$ compared to a McIntosh, so its not a fair comparison.