I would say the 871 will surely sound better. I've compared pictures of the innards of my MCD301 to the top-end Denon model CD player (I don't quite remember the model) thinking they would look similar but they are in fact completely different! McIntosh redoes everything even though the basic parts are from Denon in many cases (same parents you know). I'm sure Mc goes through all that trouble to make it better. Not to mention resale will be way higher on the Mc.
Arthur
Arthur