Marantz SA-10 Vs Esoteric K-05Xs

@fauguy If your system is perhaps slightly on the more resolving or bright side I would go with the Marantz.  The earlier Esoterics could be tipped up in the upper frequencies until they issued the XD series.  I owned the the Modwright Marantz SA8005 and now the Esoteric K-03XD.  This is an apples to oranges comparison but I heard enough good things from the Marantz line to figure out the SA-10 would be a good choice.  Just my two cents.

Goose is right. I bought my marantz SA 10 open box paid maybe close to 6k.After 3 yrs and 2 months laser gave up.Marants won’t repair it after warranty.if you don’t need balance Marantz Ruby is a good choice get it brand new. If you decide Marantz used buy extra laser in Georgia $50 they are original to be safe.

I have fully enjoyed my Marantz SA-10 SACD player, it is very refined. It can sound as good as the disc played, for instance, a disc recorded with tube sounds that were real, full sounding, and body to the music, then today's over-compressed, over-produced crap sounds that way. This replaced my Esoteric K01 and I never looked back or missed the K-o1 and that was a really fine player.  Key to any great SACD player is the power cord used, and you're playing the acoustics of your room. SA10 is a fine player and an overall champ that is also affordable and well-built. I use Dithere 1 setting, filter 3-1. The headphone amp is off, and gain is set to medium and that is important it kicks the sound up a notch and I found this by trying it one day, phase normal (based on my XLR gear pin configuration). Compared to many much more expensive players the Marantz can stand up to them all in sound quality. 

I don’t get the love for SA-10. I owned it for about a month. Yeah it’s built extremely well, feels hefty and has a buttery smooth operation. But to me it just doesn’t sound right. Engaging those filters outside of a default setting makes it even worse. On top of it all it has audibly high noise floor. I pretty much hated it. PS Audio DSD MkI DAC that replaced it at half the price of a used SA-10 was a huge improvement. 
Unless you find a killer deal used and need to check this off your bucket list, I would just skip it

I decided to go away from disc players, in general in 2020. I used to own a Marantz SA-8260 way back in 2005. The laser is a big issue in Marantz players. I had considered getting a SA10 and use it as a DAC, just in case I needed to play a disc once in a while. But I found that I did not spin a single disc from July 2020 till date. So I decided to go with a stand alone DAC.

@audphile1 , I have not read a single bad or ‘just ok’ review of the SA-10 player. It might just be that, it did not suite your system or preference.