The choice of my new CD player

I’m using a Esoteric K-03SE CD player more than 5 years, currently I’m interest to get a new CDP, my target are:

Esoteric K-03X
Audio Research CD-9
Metronome CD-8 Signature

I love my Esoteric very much, it built like a tank, work very stable and reliable, very analytical and transparency sound. I heard the latest K-03X even sounds much better (Surely K-01X is better but out of my budget). However, I’m interest to try something new, and I heard ARC CD-9 and Metronome CD-8 also sounds very nice. Does anybody compare these CDP? And what is your choice?

PS: In the future, I’m interest to get an external DAC which has complete different sound with my CDP. At the beginning I won’t use it for CAS, what I will do is to use my CDP’s transport and this external DAC to produce different sound, in this case I can have two different choice of sound. So my primary idea is K-03X because the transport system are extremely good.