Which DVDP IS THE BEST SOUND?

I am not familiar with either the Sony or Panasonic but I do have a Toshiba that is connected to a Theta Casa Nova. I am pleased with the CD sound which is very natural and open. I have not played any DVD Audio but DD or DTS audio is superb. In addition, the DAC in your preamp/receiver will have an influence on the sound.

Thannks for all your wonderful advice. I wanted to stick with my two-channel audio system (Classe integrated, Thiel 2.3, and Arcam CDP). But when I find some interesting DVD softwares, such as opera and classical live recording, I decide to change CDP to DVDP. But my time is focused on just listening CDs (80 %) and watching DVD (20%). I donot have a plan to go 5 or 6 channle yet. So, the most important consideration for DVDP is good sound quality of CDs (2 channel). I am not sure which new audio format (SACD and DVDA) will be a winner. Thus, I wait and see.

I'm equally more interested in music than movies. My new Sony DVP-S9000ES sounds great, though I am running it through an outboard DAC.

I own a European Sony DVP NS900V. I feel CD playback quality is alright for me. The opamps can be easly replaced by more audiophile types, so this may be a way to tune it a bit. As a transport it's surprisingly good, that is probably a reason for the decent CD playback.

I think DVDA multichannel will die out, DTS96/24 seems like a more flexible option at the moment. SACD also seems an unlikely format to survive, but it has a chance as a purely audiophile format.

(BTW I'm using it in a Spectral/Goldmund system)