Good Universal Player with Balanced Outs


I have been looking around for a while but I haven't seen any Universal players in the 2-5K range (roughly) that have balanced outs, at least one firewire port and are currently available. Can you suggest anything that would?

I tend to keep my equipment for a long time and I would like to get a player that I can be happy with for a number of years. Are the universal players at that stage yet or do they need a few more generations to improve their handling of the high-res formats and get most of what is possible out of SACD and DVD-Audio?
gpalmer

Showing 2 responses by irishdog

Gpalmer: Neither the Linn Unidisk or the Esoteric DV-50 have firewire outputs. I think the new Sony and the new Denon 9000 do have this feature.
I have auditioned both the Linn Unidisk 1.1 and the Esoteric DV-50. Both have XLR balanced outputs. I bought the DV-50. The DV-50 outperforms the Linn at half the price ($5500.00), and the Linn I have listened to has a number of tracking problems including refusal to recognize discs, skipping etc. I previously owned the Sony SCD 777ES, and the Esoteric DV-50 outperforms the Sony on redbook CD's as well as the high resolution formats.