3zub: I'll respond since you seem somewhat troubled. I'm not familiar with either player, but suggest you do a search. I think you'll find quite a bit from several people with regard to some modded players being better than at least the Esoteric. That seems to be the way many audiophiles are going these days, i.e. toward modded players. Check out other threads about APL, Exemplar, etc. and I think you'll see what I mean. I hope this helps a little bit.