Doe's anyone have a Esoteric XO-3 cd player?

Irishaudioboy, you gotta hear it. The 05 is sweet, but the 03SE is special, L o w level retrievel of the most minute details..., detail, depth, no edgyness or digititis... its a sweet rig. No fatigue-very fussy as it wants only great recordings as it is soo revealing and doesn't know forgiveness. I did need 1,000 hrs breakin. Great cables (PC/IC) bring it to a new level.

You gotta hear it.

Outside of the video board is the UX3pi same quality as XO3?

I've had an X-03se for about 6 months and can't speak highly enough about it. It replaced the much vaunted Meridian 508.24, which it smokes in every respect. Its redbook CD playback is outstanding, but the interesting thing is that the SACD playback is just on another level completely. To me it just reveals how limited redbook CD is by comparison - which is a matter that no-one in the audio industry appears too keen to publicise. It amazes me when I read reviews of SACD players where the reviews focus on their redbook playback and say virtually nothing about the SACD format. It's a joke really, and dishonest, in terms of promoting an inferior format and giving the impression that SACD is somehow a redundant technology. Since getting the Esoteric, I've not bought a single redbook CD and probably never will again. Anyway, the X-03se is a very fine player and an absolute bargain at the price you can get a used one for these days.

A big thanks to all of you for taking the time to help me out with this purchase. I just ordered the XO-3 and can't wait to hear it in my system! If I have any more questions, it's nice to know there is a place were I can get some straght answers from. Again,thank you ALL very much!!

Congradulations, Irishboy. Please be very patient with break in as it doesn't sound very good out of the box. It's still winter (not sure where you're located) so if it's cold where you are, let the machine settle indoors for 24 hours before you plug it in and turn it on. Leave a CD in on repeat for a long, long time (Esoteric website says 250 hours and if you call them, they say 400 hours but it can take a 1000 hours depending on system so please be patient. Balanced out is the way to play this baby (single ended not a slouch but it loves balanced). Get some good footers (I use walker audio valid points which I prefer over cera pucs on tis player), good IC and good PC. Small investment to get to some of the best digital out there. Good luck and reach out if you have any questions.