I have an Esoteric UX-1 containing arguably their best transport, now only found in the P-01. My sound is ANYTHING BUT clinical. It is actually just the opposite and although my system is tubes, Esoteric demos their systems at shows without tubes and the music still sounds great. The key, as others have mentioned, is proper setup and system-matching. Most audio folks I have talked to are very tuned in to doing this. My transport spins at 4x the speed of most CD players, allowing for a buffered "error correction" on the fly. It results in very accurate reproduction of what is on the disc, but instead of sounding clinical, it just sounds "right". My goal 8 years ago was to have the musicians "playing in my living room", and I have achieved that with the help of Esoteric and a few other friends.