There are distinctly superior playback with the Esoteric, in a well setup system. The hairs on my dog ears stood up when lazing on my lap, he would not lie and sleep! This is not a pun intended and happened only minutes ago before i stumbled on this thread.
For value, in a value system and don't even need to compare the Oppo, a sub thousand player does sound very good indeed.
FWIW, i had a Marantz SA11s2 modified to the max and effectively ended up costing double the price. It has a nice vocal from the start and ended up doing every thing very, Very well throughout the frequency range. But like what Cerrot said, never once made me startled that as if there was sound from a real instrument or sound popping out of nowhere which i have experienced on the esoteric, not all music, but a good many recording will reveal such experiences.
I am sure my dog was left rather puzzled as well. She never pricked ears at the radio or TV, ever before! It was really funny.
