Re: reliability stand point, if you had to fix or sell I would recomend Esoteric, it's built like a tank.
I was demoing some transports at one point and had the Kalista Ref, "gorgeous pce" and at that time compared it to a Oracle 2000, I slightly preferred the Metronome but;
I then evaluated it along with asking myself some questions,
a. It would not play a few pces that I have never had any issues with before so that concerned me, error just kept coming up.
b. 50K list, the differences just were not enough, I needed to be wowed!
c. if I ever had issues down the road big question, what would I do? Not sure now but US dealers were dropping the product line.
Now recently I did some more transport demos, I bought the Oracle 2000 latest version but one pce I demoed was the MBL 1621A Ref dac and I now own it.
It really is going to come down to your preference, you should check out Reference Dac's and refer to the types, what the different flavours are. If you have heard any and ask your self do you agree, this will assist in you deciding what might possibly work for you.
I heard the Esoteric top of the line VU with clock and it was very nice, very expensive. This is one combo I will get down the road and demo within my set-up but I'm in no hurry as I'm really enjoying my current set-up.
don't know if this helps.
