Audio Aero Prestige vs. Esoteric X-01 Limited

The system is as follows:

ARS Sonum Filarmonia
Merlin VSM-MXe loudspeakers
Cardas Golden Reference Interconnects and Biwire Speaker cables
Critical Mass Systems Grand Master Black Label Platforms
BPT 2.5

I am leaning towards the AA unit at this point. This is what Bobby recommended (in the Capitole).

I have an AA Prima Mk2 and auditioned the Prestige at length. AA makes exactly the type of sound I like. It doesn't sound like digital and yet has excellent resolution and timing. That is what I would go with.

I have the Prestige SE which was an upgrade from Prestige. They both require a long burn-in time to sound best (2000 hours) - I think its to do with the tubes. My dealer has the Esoteric P03/D03 combo which I auditioned. Esoteric build is stunning and sounds very good.

My preference is for the Prestige even though Esoteric P03/D03 presented more detail. Prestige for me was more musical and involving which I would attribute to its splendid presention of harmonics / tonal decay.

With my computer setup as a dedicated transport via Toslink (feeding 24/96), I am getting details that was missing (and other improvements such as bass and dynamics) but still retaining all musicality of Prestige SE.

You should also listen to the Meridian 808. We recently did compare this player with the Esoteric X-O1. We all three ( including the owner of the X-O1 found the Meridian superior than the X-O1. When you compare redbook cd, the Meridian is by far superior. More weight in the low freq, more detail, more depth, a far better individual focus and a more analog sound. When we did some testing with sacd compared to cd, we agreed that this player is a lot better with sacd compared to cd. But when we compared the Esoteric with sacd to the cd layer on the Meridian we still prefered the sound of the Meridian. The low freq. played at sacd is awesome, no doubt about it. But the individual focus was a lot better with the Meridian. Also we liked more the timbre of voices and instruments.