Ayre C5xe or APL 3910 ?

Interesting thread. Keis I didn´t know, that Boulder builds CDP´s ;)? Compared to the BAT and the Krell (which serious music lover listens with Krell??) the Boulder 1012 pre-amp with dac (you probably mean this unit) is in another stratosphere when connected to an adequate drive like Metronome or Esoteric.
Tvad: I havent compared the 3910 modded Denon to C-5xe but I for sure know at least three one box players that easily outperform the modded Denon: my Audio Aero Capitole MK II with mods, the Wadia 861 SE with GNSC Statement modes (light years away) and the Esoteric UX-1. There might be many others out there (Spectral, dcs, Goldmund, Metronome, Bladelious Gondul, etc, etc.) So its always very dangerous to say how good sth. is when you haven´t listend to the rest... But I agree with you the Denon is very hard to beat for the money although the looks, the build quality and the ergonomics are crap..
But I´ve heard some roomors that JRDG will release a matching multiformat player to their amps..

Quackfat: yes you´re right, I´ve compared the denon to the modded aa the modded wadia and the ux-1 not to the c-5xe. interestingly to your ears the inferior product (drive, casework, superclock, processor, damping, etc (denon). were superior to the ones I´ve auditionned - interesting ;)

Quackfat I´ve already discussed with Alex in seperate mail where he states that my assumtions are correct as the unit I´ve listend to was from End 2004. Meanwhile he did several changes (you´ve mentionned some). Probably the latest model is better than the one I had. But I can´t comment on his actual version. In my draw the GNSC Wadia 861 SE was clearly the best followed by my modded AA Cap. II.