What's the best Sony CD/SACD player?

I've been burning in my XA5400ES continuously for 100+ hours now. I've heard the most improvement in the first 20-30 hours of the breaking in. The initial impression of etched treble went away after a day or so. I haven't noticed much improvement since then.

I did a brief comparison between my Linn Unidisk and XA5400ES today. They were connected to the preamp using identical interconnects, level matched using SPL meter for CD medium. I've used Diana Krall - The girl in the other room (SACD), and Friends of Carlotta (redbook XRCD2) for comparison.

Both Linn and Sony sound good to my ears. There are more similarities than differences in the sound they produce. Some characteristics are more subtle than others. I'll list some of my observation in the order from more dramatic to more subtle.

Off the bat, the immediate difference is in the bass. Many of Diana Krall's album, The girl in the other room in particular is hot on the bass. While the overall sound quality for this album is exceptional, it also brings the worst out of my room with boomy midbass around 80Hz. With XA5400ES the room mode is dramatically reduced. The bass is tight and less boomy with XA5400ES.

Friends of Carlotta is a studio recording that captures high level of immediacy and detail. I've first played the CD on Unidisk. When I switched to Sony I noticed three things. The background was darker with Sony. Chimes sounded more delicate and extended. However the female vocal was more sibilant. Her voice is rather sibilant, but it was not as bothersome with Linn. With Sony it was somewhat annoying.

Linn sounds more three dimensional, with excellent width and depth of the soundstage. Sony sounds more focused and detailed, but not as wide and deep.

If those CDP were drawing sonic picture of the music, Linn was projecting three dimensional hologram in the air, and Sony was presenting oil painting on canvas. Linn was projecting transparent and vibrant three dimensional picture in the air. With Sony the picture is clearly focused, and I was able to see the tiny little details on the canvas.

Based on that description, I'd choose the Linn hands down.

I tried to be as objective as possible, but my bias was probably showing in my short description. I like the presentation of Linn as well. But I probably have under stated XA5400ES somewhat. The detail retrieval and increased midrange texture on Sony cannot be ignored. What's even more amazing is that the higher detail is heard without sounding bright or edgy. If anything Sony is darker sounding than Linn. For me I actually prefer Sony's presentation because 1. I'm used to Linn and was looking to get something different to begin with. and 2. I was looking to improve red book CD playback with more detail, and get more textured midrange overall, and Sony hit the sweet spot.

True, the choice of adjectives I used probably was confusing. When I say darker, sometimes I mean tonal balance, and I also use darker to indicate the blacker black background / lower noise floor. For example, when I played Friends of Carlotta on Unidisk I thought the sound was detailed, but sometimes it was "shouty" or somewhat congested. On Sony I thought it was less congested, also there was more of the small ambiance of the recording studio. Could be due to lower noise floor. Could be from better detail extraction. Another reason I used the word darker was to emphasize that Sony is not a bright sounding player. But anyways I should just stick to more objective side of the impression than using colorful adjectives that could be confusing.