Sony 9000es or Musical Fidelity A3 CDP.

If you are thinking about the 9000es as a dvd and sacd player it is excellent the redbook although goo it as good as th A3cd. Consider Da Wright's mods to the 9000es with these the 9000 will far surpass the MF on redbook and have incredible sacd and DVD. www.modwright.com

I sincerely beleive that the Sony 9000ES is the better buy, and that's not even considering the added bonus of DVD and SACD. I carefully auditionned the Sony, the Musical Fidelity and the Rega Jupiter (more expensive than the planet but worth it). Following reasons for buying the 9000ES:

A lot more detail probably due to the extraordinary sony DVD transport (even the "2-generations-back" flagship S-7000 was considered one of the best transport regardless of price! check the still-available planethifi.com 1997 review of this machine. Hard to beleive but true!) And the 9000 is way better.

Very real and palpable midrange without coloration.

An excellent match for a tube preamp with all this detail feeding tube's warm sound nicely.

Built like a tank, extra-quiet operation.

Video circuits can be switched off, leaving audio-only circuits on, making it a true dedicated audio machine.

Impeccable, classy styling with the cool blue "glass" diamond. ( Musical fidelity takes the cake as worst-looking disco glitz style. Sorry, but I just could not stand it)

The excellent DVD picture and SACD added to making this a no-brainer really, but buy it strickly for it's audio magic, it's that good. Just don't expect high-end store to want to sell you this incredible machine instead of their megabuck cd player. It's not worth it for them, but beleive me, snobery aside, it's the steal of the crop so far. By the way, my older player was the classe cdp.5, usually considered a very good player...the 9000ES is in a different league. One downside. The 9000ES will only play cd copies if recorded on Sony software. I knew this before buying, did not bother me but it might bother you. Good luck in making the right choice.

I have heard both and the only reson to buy the Sony is if you want DVD.If you intend to play CD Redbook run run as fast as you can from the Sony.
Its typical Sony sound BAD.
The A#CD is better and the REGA Planet 2000 Is better than both.
Sony as a serious Red book CD player.I have heard it all.

I partially agree with Nat on this one. But what I would do is buy the Sony and then buy an EVS or Bel Canto DAC. Why? Because the Sony sound is lacking, but the transport portion is clearly superior to the other choices, if not superior to players costing a 1000 bucks more. Then after I lived with it for a while I'd hit for the mods by Dan Wright. I did an extensive A/B with the 9000 and the 777 multichannel SACD player, and believe the foreground to be equal. But the background, that was another story and the 777 blew away the 9000 (of course I'm only talking a SCAD comparison, not redbook). Good luck, go for the Sony!