13 going 30.

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!

Oh yes, indeed and I've been waiting. BlueRay is growing and sure should we. But if the latest Denon BlueRay 3800, the Marantz, and the latest $2K Sony ES player have the capabilty to produce sound just as good as these high-end "universal" players, I'm up for it. Not to mention that none of those BlueRay can play SACD.
I have tested couple BlueRays when they first came out and their sound quality did not meet my listening standard.

Nas,

Did you run them through something that could decode the new codecs? I doubt so because if you did you would not have said that!

A Sony unit outperforms ANY Esoteric? While I am all for creative writing this is a hard pill to swallow. Being this I have heard nobody else say this leaves some doubt but if its true surely this will come out in time.