Has anyone had on of these CD players? How good are they?

I still have an old Sony XA20ES that still works like new. It is in a secondary system at present, so doesn’t get used every day. It has a drawer, but the whole laser drive and table drive are in a slide out assembly. It takes a puck on top of the disk. I think the laser drive slides on a rail. Sony used to use a linear motor on those units. Not sure what is in this one though. I did lube the laser rails a few years ago. I think the above advice is spot on. Mechanical stuff does wear out.

X707es would be my choice as a transport, if i had to choose between the three you mention, cannot go wrong and rarely does get better than this.

One issue, check that laser is ok, normally it would last very long time, the one i had in the past is still spinning, also note that these units are not supported with spares any more.

I owned the X707ES for many years.  Good player in its time but not so special in stock form by today's standards.  If you are looking for a good transport you would be better off buying a Rega Saturn.  Very musical and good quality.

Happy Listening.

How much is it @2psyop ?
If it is cheap enough and sounds OK, then just take a dive.

I have not spotted an older Sony like these but with the magnetic drives, balanced outputs, tremendous parts...it seems like Sony put alot of effort into building a very high quality and well engineered player at the height of the CD era. If I could snag a really good x707es I might just get it and try it with a top notch DAC. BTW I have an older REGA Apollo CD player and it has a really decent sound and transport as well. It has a buffer for storage of data, that helps with the digital signal coming out correct and thus the sound as well.