OK gang, I did some research. Did some automated translation of Japanese pages and some manual translation of Italian pages. I came up with the following stilted little paragraphs on the new UX-3 and X-03 players:
Teac Japan has announced two new players derived from the UX-1 and X-01, with January 2005 Japan availability. The two players, named UX-3 and X-03 respectively, employ a simplified version of the VRDS transport mechanism: reduced thickness in the bridge from 20 mm in X-01 to 10mm in X-03, DurAluminum instead of Magnesium for the clamping mechanism, in the VRDS-NEO transport.
The D2A conversion process seems similar to that implemented on UX-1 and X-01:
DAC Burr-Brown/Texas PCM1704 with
DSD to PCM conversion for SACD. Furthermore, for the front channels the machines utilize 2 PCM1704 chips per channel in a differential design.
The quartz clock generator has been mounted as close as possible to the DACs to minimize jitter.
There is also a Sony-standard digital iLink output: it is my understanding that this is what is also known as IEEE-1394.
Mechanically the machines appear very well built; The loading tray is also made from Aluminum. The weight of these machines is 23.5 Kg, that is 51.7 Lbs.
X-03 is a 2-channel CD/SACD pure audio player, while the UX-3 is a 2-channel universal audio/video player instead, whose video circuitry employs a ADV7314 DAC and a Faroudja DCDi processor.
Multi-channel capability can be achieved only utilizing external processors connected to the iLink digital output.
The price in Japan for the X-03 is 45% less than X-01, while the price of UX-3 is 40% less than UX-1.
Further information (in Japanese) and photographs can be found at the following uRL:
http://www.teac.co.jp/av/esoteric/x03_ux3/index.html
I was tempted to post the raw automated techno-Japlish machine translations of the otherwise excellent Teac Japan pages, but just trying to read them makes my head hurts, so I will spare you the brain-swelling.
It is very difficult to tell if these devices will sound as good as the X-01 and UX-1. They seem to have been cost-reduced. But will the cost engineering affect sound? As usual, only a future shootout will tell.