Why is Sony Digital sound more like vinyl?

I have been lately to philharmonic after long, long break (in Philadelphia), I have forgotten how good sound can be.
I could not believe what I was hearing. Even the best high-end audio rig exceeding 200k$ was not even close to me not to mention SONY...
Why if SONY is that good I have not seen one on HE 2001, HE 2002, HE 2003, HE 2004 used as a source ?
But I have seen as a source:
EMM Lab, Accuphase, Wadia, Cary, Theta, Audio Aero, Lector and others, not even one SONY ???

This is one of greatest post !!!
Base on my experience, so many of us are biased with name brand, and we can tell through reading this post.
If you come to a house/dealer... for an audition and without knowing namebrand of gears, how many of you can confidently distinguish SCD-XA777ES from others mentioned above ?????????

The industry has to sell gear...money makes the world go around last time I checked...and there is alot of tasty treats to be had but I say again..(I've owned most of the names mentioned or at least demo'd the others extensively at home)...the Sony sounds more natural or unhyped when carefully set up...the others make great initial demonstration gear because they grab your attention quickly!

The Sony draws you in unexpectadely upon extended listening...it is no way near perfect but it gets the essentials right..I didn't want to sell my $18k Levinson rig f or fun or the Wadia 861 or anything else...they just sounded wrong over time to the point I considered giving up this hobby!!!

Such an interesting thread. I continue to audition my new, (used) Sony XA777ES and the word that comes to mind is honesty. The dynamic range is very honest. When a solo violin plays, it's rather smallish, though when the orchestra roars, there's quite a bit of inertia behind the volume; the mark of a excellent CD player. Symphony practice just started up again and during pieces in which I don't play, I got a chance to sit in the hall and listen critically. It was, in fact, similar to Sony's presentation--at least the XA. There's no playing to the peanut gallery with the Sony--no hyper-realism--stings are in their place, bells sound like bells without splitting atoms, etc. I don't find the player harsh at all, though my Musical Fidelity A308 and Vandy 3a sigs are very friendly in that respect.

Jdaniel has the hall experience even more than I it appears and He understands a bit about what is special in the Sony XA presentation or rendering if you will. IMHO I believe the parallel DAC arrays remove the digital (subliminal at times) nature of even the redbook stuff more so than most other gear. The rest of the processing is also interesting and unique...24bitVC filter with 2.something Mhz processing power; add to that 8x oversampling (upsampling equivelent ala Mark Levinson) and a 1 bit downconversion scheme and you get something less digital sounding with few drawbacks...not that it can't be improved or beat..just that it amazes me that Sony has done it so well!!