Getting into SACD

Rocky -

you are headed in the right direction, add, Marantz to your list.

Jafant beat me to it. The Marantz SA-15S2b is quite nice.

Whats your budget and what kind of sound do you like? Whats the rest of your system? I have owned both Esoteric and Luxman. I prefer the Luxman.

Rest of system -
Essence Jasper MkII monoblock amps
Musical Design Chameleon pre (tubed)
Essence Reference Super Gem speakers
Intuitive Design ICs and speaker wire
(Arcam FMJ 23T cd and VPI Classic 3 TT)

Budget is no more than $1,500. And I will have to sell my Arcam to finance this purchase. I want a cd/SACD player who's redbook quality is at least on a par with the Arcam. I won't sacrifice redbook quality in order to gain SACD capability.

IMO, lower priced SACD players do not do redbook as well as dedicated players near the same price. I have owned the Sony 9000, 5400 and the Esoteric X-05 and found this to be true in all three cases. Perhaps the more expensive players like the Esoteric X-03 and up do better, but I have no experience with them. I finally gave up on SACD and went with a better redbook player and found this to be a more satisfactory solution for my tastes. IMO, a better redbook player playing a standard CD sounds better than a lesser SACD player playing the SACD of the same recording. But again, that's just me.