Is the EMM DAC6e or DCC2 /CDSD the best out there?

Personally I definitely prefer Meitner over Esoteric and dCS. Esoteric does excel on inner detail, but Meitner is far better in terms of transparency and just a general sense of openess. In way it sounded if Meitner had a larger sound stage, both left to right and front to back. Also better at transients & decay. Esoteric was v good at resolution, inner detail, dynamics but lacked that sense of naturalness if you will. dCS goes even further in terms resolution, detail to my ears but again lacks the special air around the instruments or color of timbre. In a way, I guess Esoteric and dCS sound like GREAT digital but Meitner approxiametes analogue LPs. At least that has been my own experience so far.

Zanden, Reimyo, I have not tried but hear great things about them: however they do not provide SACD capability, which of course may not matter to you. Zanden though if you want the full set up will cost you!

I also think that not only is the Ayre 5xe (2 channel universal) very very good indeed, but among all the high end players best value for money. Personally prefer it over Esoteric. I already have the Meitner gear, the Ayre is my top choice for second system I am considering building.

Whatever the case, you really need to audition them yourself. At this level, all are exceptionally good, and a lot depends on your own tastes.

if you are serious about the best digital then you'd have to include Exemplar 3910 ModWright esoteric x-01 possibly the Reference Mod SCD-1 and of course the APL 3910. the apl is arguably the best digital in the world. it isn't cheap but also isn't expensive when compared to the EMM and some others.

only problem is you have to get on their waiting list for the APL 3910.

this posting may answer your question.
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1102095173&openflup&12&4#12

but first you have to carefully read and analyze the post just of it.

Henryhk, how many hours of breakin did the Esoteric X-01 you listen to have when you compared it against the EMM? Detailed and slightly digital sounding are the typical features of the creature when it is not completely broken in. Conversely, once broken in, X-01 excels in the very size of the stage in the three dimensions, the sense of separation and air around the instruments, and the decaying resonance from the venue and from the instruments. String players will tell you you can hear the 'sound of the Rosen' in quiet passages. Whether it is digital or analog sounding is not terribly material, however what is true is that it is very sensitive to recordings that have been equalized with an artificial treble boost to compensate for poor equipment. Recordings with flat equalization more typical of some classical recordings sound absolutely marvellous. : try J. S. Bach's suite #6 for cello played by M. Rostropovich and you will hear what I am talking about.

Yet, not having heard the EMM, I am not qualified to make any better/worse comparisons.

Guidocorona, I must admit I do not know for sure how long the break in was but I suspect well enough given I had loaned a the demo model from a dealer. I am more of a jazz, blues, rock person though I do love Bach for some reason. I generally agree with what you are saying but my own personal exp with X-01 was very good, I do think it lacked what I described before: it had "hard" character if you know what I mean though I must stress this was only to a minor degree and in relation to Meitner. At least that was my own experience: I also listened to it over 3 hours or so as the dealer had to take it away: perhaps more time with it would have chnaged my mind. At any rate, I personally just think the capability of best of what digital has offer has sigificantly improved over very recent years including Esoteric, Meitner, Ayre, and the likes. At this level, its not about better and that was why I said I "prefer". I did think after all Esoteric was better at retrieving inner detail at times, though I may be mistaken. I believe JA at Sterophile's measurements showed the Estoeric gear rolled of high frequencies on SACD playback rather quickly: I wonder that has anything to do with it, though I am no measurement freak either. My old players were ML and Camelot Techonology stuff before the upgrade to Meitner and for that I am absolutely sure there was huge improvement! Its matter of preference and system matching.

Henryhk, it is quite possible that the X-01 may have either more treble energy or a more extended treble than the EMM.
It is also possible that the X-01 may generate by itself some treble distortion. Yet I have at least some indication that treble harshness or distortion in the X-01 may be caused by some ICs mismatch instead. . . e.g. I have experienced it with both AWQ Panther and Cardas neutral reference.
In either situations the treble distortion has largely gone away by replacing the front-end to linestage length of Panther with an AudioQuest Sky.
I am qualifying with 'largely, because in both situations there was occasional residual harshness, but the 2nd length of IC had not been replaced by a higher quality one.
Oddly enough with the insertion of the single length of Sky, not only distortions were largely removed, but the treble became more extended. It would have been very interesting to audition also an EMM under identical circumstances.