ESOTERIC X-03 VS. AYRE C5XE

Hi Steve , Alex is very busy organizing his new OEM business and launching a full of new and exciting products as well as completing orders .He has turned over customer service to me and all inquiries now are routed through me thus his non responsiveness to your personal e mails and calls. Please contact me for anything anytime via e mail or telephone as I am here for you and all Apl Hi Fi customers . I speak with Alex daily and can answer your questions in detail quickly. Brent Rainwater CSM Apl Hi Fi

Alex, please respond to the many emails and phone messages regarding my products I sent to you over 1-year ago.

Phous, at least from what I can see from the review, the build quality of the Lexicon seems to be on a very high level. Besides, Lexicon is no small company, but belongs to Harmon, as do Mark Levinson and Revel. In all fairness to the Esoteric, it should be mentioned that there is a new, SE-version of the X.03 in preparation, I think this was mentioned over on sixmoons.com

Compared standard DV-50 S to C-5xe and UX-3 and RAM modded DV-50 S to standard C-5xe and UX-3. Conclusions:
C-5xe vs. standard DV-50 s: better resolution, liquidity, detail retrieval a bit more aire (Ayre); better focus, tighter bass, better macro dynamics + a tad more warmth (DV-50 S). C-5xe vs. UX-3: slightly more transparency and liquidity with C-5xe other parameters (imageing, bass, dynamics, etc.) UX-3 is better. Modded DV-50 S vs. C-5xe and UX-3: modded DV-50 S wins hands down (10 sec. of listening will prove that). Hope this helps. My configuration can be looked up in the virtual systems corner.
rgds.

Yes, there appear now to be SE versions of the UX-3 and X-03 available in the US. Please see:
http://www.teac.com/esoteric/X-03_SpecialEdition.html
As the X-03 and corresponding SE version are natively optimized for audio, they would be more appropriate to compare with modded universal players whose modifications have also been optimized for audio.