Marantz DV-9500: Anyone Listened to it or Bought?

Dalton, it certainly does, thanks so much. From your description, it appears that our taste in presentation is very similar. I too prefer a more upfront and lively sound. Especially dynamics and leading edge attack. But unfortunately my money tree has a low harvest threshold and therefor I must spend wisely.

How do you guys feel the transport sections of the newer universal DVD players stack up?

Distortion,
There is a fairly indepth reveiw of the Onkyo sp 1000 being used as a transport as compared to the Denon 3910 being used as a transport whith the top Krell pre/pro at www.avsforum.com in the massive Onkyo sp 1000 thread....somwhere in the last 5 pages.

Apparently..there is no comparison and the better built Onkyo is much better as a transport than the 3910.

I agree whith Lanny that the dvd-a on the sp 1000 is a bit warm sounding, but then again, this is my least used format and I have only had the bright sounding Denons to compare to for dvd-a.

Lanny, you may want to break in each individual format a bit more though.

Thanks Ears I'll check that out.

Guys,
Basically what I am really searching hard for is the very best 2 channel DVD-Audio performance for $2,000.00 or less.
DVD-Audio is currently my favorite format [besides analog] for music reproduction. As you can probably tell from my other threads, I am a HUGE fan of this format.
I am looking for the best resolution, detail, openness, focus, and aliveness on this format for $2,000 or less.
Thanks.

EARS,
Is there any way or anywhere that we can obtain the British, German, or French reviews of the Onkyo DV-SP1000?
Any place where the French and German reviews have been partially or fully translated to English?
Thanks alot.