13 going 30.

Nas,

I have lived with an Esoteric DV-50 and a Denon 5910CI for a couple years now. They are different players. I clearly prefer the Esoteric to the Denon, as evidenced by the Denon living in the bedroom system and the Esoteric more often in the main rig in the living room.

The Esoteric is more detailed and has much better bass control, especially on SACD's. The Esoteric offers more air and separation as well, and for the price of $2K (A DV-50s in on the gon now for this) they are a steal, I paid $4,500 for mine new and still think it was a buy at that!

You also get the benefit of much better build quality with the Esoteric, though it has a hard power button so you can't turn it on and of remotely.

To be $2500 poorer. Is this a trick question?

Kennyt,
Since the DV-50 does not have HDMI output, how would you please rate its picture quality with the Denon 1080p?
FYI: I only have Denon DVD-5910 (non-Ci)

Go hear the new Sony SACD player before you go with the Esoteric or Denon. with the hdmi output and the xlr connectors you will be surprised. On regular cd's Sony flag ship now beats Esoteric, any model, hands down. So, listen you must. Also, it is easy to put in your system and then return if you are not blown away. If you like it, your savings will be enough to buy over 100 SACD's. It really is all about the music software.

Nas,

I currently have four Blu-ray players and still have my Toshiba HD-XA2 HD DVD player in my rig, so I don't use the Esoteric for video at all, I use the Toshiba HD XA2, it's the best scaling DVD player I've ever had, better than the Denon too. I only use the DV-50s for CD's/SACD/DVD-A.

If you buy the DV-60, you will of course have a 1080p scaling player, which I suspect would do a very good job as well, but lets be real, it's almost 2009, Blu-ray players are selling for <$200 routinely and occasionally <$100, so I try to watch only NATIVE 1080p whenever possible!