dcs puccini, chord red ref, meitner cdsa or nagra

Puccini is hard to beat in terms of resolution, transparency, MUSIC, flow, slam, soundstage, construction quallity, from all the one box alternatives.

A better remote control is needed only.

*Never heard the playback designs though, but former user of Emmlabs cdsa se and familiar with Esoteric line.

i do not disagree Bar81 that's what I said first about well known manufacturer with reliability for example Accuphase, dCS, Esoteric......but sonics as well!

@Maxx2man , I hear it in Munich, it was a relief when the Chrod substituted with the vinyl (Continuum)......

@Dazzdax,
Chris regarding your question it depends on the cd collection or vinyl collection one has....if I had thousand of vinyls I'd invest in the best possible analogue and a good decent one box cd-player, but since I have thousands of original cds I'd invest in Scarlatti if I could.
For the moment the dCS Puccini transfroms my red book cds in what was promised many years ago...MUSIC, something that even my former Emmlabs CDSA SE could not do in such degree, so I could only imagine what the Scarlatti can achieve!

@Elberoth2- Adam, yes very recently I changed, I've let dCS Puccini to burn-in and this weekend I had a shootout with the new Emmlabs owner and 2 more audiophiles, well the Puccini having much wider soundstage, more transparency (it's like a shower in music!) more live and vivid but as smooth and above all it was the first time I understood that Emm cdsa se had some kind of glare and blurr and mixed some instruments, although I still think cdsa se it's still a fantastic player, Puccini is another league and very musical too.
The most impressive thing is what it does to plain vanilla redbook cds with dsd upsampling!!!
All the cabling was the same and both players used 2 Stealth Dream digital power cords.
And the whole feeling of construction and extra options is amazing. I have not connected yet directly to my amplifier so I still have things to check.

For me both players (Puccini and cdsa se) are the most exciting balance of smooth musical sound but also precise and revealing (even warm sounding in a good way). Some experience with non-oversampling dacs was dramatic, yep these dacs masking the music but hides things in attempt to be musical as I concluded the hard thing is to keep it musical but with all the information and right timbre as well and in that area new dCS and Emmlabs are among the best representatives.

most important is the sonics and then the looks and of course a reliable and well-known manufacturer especially in digital gear.