Esoteric's parent company Teac has been making some of the best CD drives on the planet for decades. They used to sell to OEM's but now keep all their drives to them selves in Teac/Esoteric's CD players etc. great players if not some of the best on the market right now. There simply is not that many CD drives (OEM) being made anymore so almost everyone is using the same few drives in their players, regardless of manufacture. Esoteric uses their own (Teac) drives and have been for decades.
That said I have no idea what the digital side of the house sounds like been a couple decades since I owned one. maybe consider one of their CD/SACD transports and an outboard DAC.
