hi-end universal players?

Esoteric, Primare, Theta, Bel Canto, Linn, Denon (?), Lexicon, Integra, Marantz, ...what have I left out?

Among these,

Theta I hear is great with their new DAC but then that adds substanital cost
Linn is too expensive when the incremental sound quality compared to others is questionable in my opinion: its just their way of trying to recoup development costs of their chip set which they did alone....not a good reason
Denon, Integra, Lexicon all good value, but probably lacks true hi end quaility (perhaps not the Lexicon)
Bel Canto similiar in price to Linns
Thus Esoteric if u are considering a budget of US$5000 or lower?

To ryoung: Could you please be specific about the ways the Bel Canto universal player beats the Esosteric DV-50? Is it better than the Linn Unidisk (the best universal I've heard so far)? Exactly what makes it so special? Thanks!

Has anyone heard the new MCormack universal player?

I was wondering the same as Pardales. I have a McCormack MAP-1 pre-amp and love it. I figured the UDP-1 player would be real good. HOWEVER, let me get on my soap box. I truly believe that the best bet in the long run is to find a player that does ONE THING VERY WELL. If you want great redbook play, get a great redbook player, etc.

IMHO.

Tom

I currently own the Bel Canto PL-1, the Arcam FMJ DV27A and the Ayre D1-x. The Bel Canto and Arcam are very close in performance, I could happily live with either, they both have a big robust sound and wide soundstage, they are both tonally excellent are really pretty hard to fault. The Ayre player takes it up a notch, it has a more natural tone and the lower mids are noticably less clouded sounding than the other two. The Ayre is also significantly better on video too. I did not get a chance to use the PL-1 with the progressive outs since that is on a RGB connector so it may not be a fair comparison. The Ayre will only play DVD and CD, so it is not a universal player as is not the Arcam (it will play DVD audio). I did listen to a few SACDs on the Bel Canto and wasn't all that impressed, I much prefer certain regular CD recordings to the SACDs I had on hand. The Ayre retails at 11,750.00 and the Arcam at 3000.00 with the Bel Canto comming in at 9000.00. The Arcam is the obvious best deal of the bunch, in my opinion it offers state of the art CD playback plus DVD at a very reasonable price. If you want one of the best out there check out the Ayre D1-x.