SACD certainly bests CD for me.

Jim swanko. I find the Esoteric a bit much for my CD player budget-not saying that its not worth every penny;I think we in the high end listening corp are lucky to have such huge reputable,reliable companies creating masterpieces for our enjoyment. It moves all reproduction forward with business competition. However, I'd like to spend $1500 or less for(fleeting?) CD playback.

Ncarv, isn't it also a little unbelievable how the DVD-A consortium ruined the sound benefits by the video screen requirement.

Is it really DVD consortium's fault, or the implementation of player's navigation system? With my Denon universal I can just pop in DVD-A, hit play, and the music comes out, just like CD or SACD. I don't have a video monitor connected to Denon, and I don't feel a need.

When playing DVD movies, I noticed some players will go directly to featured movie bypassing the menu system, some other players will play through the previews but let you skip forward, some other players will not let you even fast forward the previews. I don't think it's the format's fault. It's the better engineering and UI design. Similarly, you can have DVD-A player that doesn't require a video connection all the times with proper UI.

Very interesting to know. Perhaps it is just the implementation. Unfortunate really as I thought improved sound for all out of their DVD player would have encouraged even better recording quality. Denon gets so much good press I'm going to try and demo the 3910.