Which CD\SACD?

I have both the OPPO 105D with mods and the Ayre C-5xeMP.  I far prefer the Ayre.  OPPO can be too brittle and overly precise on the highs, particularly if your system leans toward the bright side. 

Thanks.  I truly think that once you hear an Esoteric you won't want anything else.  My SACDs and XRCDs, gold MoFi's sound just as good as my LPs on my VPI Classic 4!

I have heard several Esoteric models, and none of them have induced me to buy one. 
None of the Esoteric units I heard sounds anything like what the OP is asking about. Rich sound and musicality are not words that I associate with Esoteric players.

Now, that said maybe you can tune the sound in that direction by using warm cables, like Transparent. I suppose there's many ways to accomplish the same goal. 

The OP hopefully has a chance to listen to some players, as sonically the Esoteric and Marantz are very different sounding players, who each have their admirers. 

The Esoterics I've owned, while good performers overall (especially the X-01, which was highly modded), just did not engage me over the long haul. My Marantz, on the other hand, has. 

When I've listened to the two manufacturers back to back, it sounds like two companies with two totally different conceptions of what live music sounds like. Neither conception is wrong, per se, but IN MY OPINION, Marantz's idea of live sound, as engineered into their Reference-line products, is closer to what I hear when I go to a concert.