Any experience with the Esoteric UX-1

Sorry, I have not heard the Ayre player. I think Guidocorona's advice is right-on.

Steve

In last months issue of Absolute sound there was a review of both the high end Esoteric players. The reviewer directly compared them to the Ayre D1-X and in both cases he prefered substatially the sound of the Ayre player. I have never heard the Esoteric stuff, but do own the Ayre and of all the digital I've owned it sounds the best to me, and the picture is amazing as well

I heard and saw a comparison of the UX-1 versus the Immersive Technology Simmetry and it was ugly for as good as the UX-1 was it simply could not muster the level of performance the Simmetry in either audio and certainly not video either.

The Simmetry is pretty amazing and it half the price.

Made in USA too.

The Ayre is nice too, but even if the audio is the same as the Simmetry the video will several notches down. So if video matters a good deal check out the Simmetry.

I don't know if you need video, but I recently auditioned the new Ayre universal player in my system and was completely knocked out......... I had a couple of other nice CD players on hand for comparison as well, and the Ayre left everything in the dust. FWIW The dealer who helped me with the audition is also an Esoteric dealer and reccommends the Ayre players head and shoulders above the Esoteric.

EJLIF, I did read the sound thrashing that the X-01 and UX-1 players received on Absolute Sound and the reviews left me befuddled. My admittedly short experience with X-01 was very different. I can't even decide if it's the usual matter of 'beauty is in the ears of the audiofool', or it's a matter of me not having heard as many players as the reviewer. But this far TAS is the only dissenting thumbs-down review of the X-01, whatever the reasons.
Isn't amazing how the same device can be praised and thrashed by different equally respectable reviewers?