Best sounding universal player (CD, DVD-A, SACD)

Hmm pekelola, I just added an Esoteric SA-60 for 5.1 to go with the Ayre C5xeMP I use for stereo.  The SA-60 sounds pretty good to me.  The SA-60 goes through the 7.1 analog bypass of a Bryston SP3; C-5xeMP goes through an analog Parasound JC 2 BP.

No Oppo is worth $3500-

I've always stayed away from modified players/gear in general for 2 reasons; (1) the original manufacturer's warranty is voided when you open the unit and start changing/adding things and (2) most of the mod'ers I've talked to seem to have 'their latest revision/flavor' of the modification in mind with a history of having the next great mod just right around the corner. I could be wrong here given today's market and offerings but I've looked into this extensively a couple years back (2-5) and the story seemed to always be the same with respect to the two points above.

Depending up which Oppo player is being referenced above, comparing it to an Esoteric SA-60 is definitely not a fair comparison as the SA player is quite a few years old in design (2006-2007 I think) and was not the high point of the line by any means though it did sound very good at the time...

Also,...to the best of my knowledge, none of the DCS players or the stack is a 'universal player' platform; at most, they support any RBCD format and SACD.

While I chose 3 leaders - Marantz UD9004, Ayre C-5xeMP, Bladelius Freja. UD9004 - very warm nice sound (AK4399). Ayre and Bladelius similar in sound (both DSD1792)

Good info here guys.