hi-end universal players?

I just made a purchase of the Bel Canto PL-1, I'll let you know what I think when I get it up and running.

I am thinking the same way, going with a universal player, mostly to save real estate on the rack, my main concern is for regular CD playback. I too was thinking Esoteric DV-50, or even Linn unidisk.

From what I've read if you can handle the price you can't go to wrong with the Meridian 800, it's supposed to be incredible with regular CD as well as the other formats. It's just too much dough for me, but that's the one I'd go for if price were not a concern.

I currently own the Bel Canto PL-1, the Arcam FMJ DV27A and the Ayre D1-x. The Bel Canto and Arcam are very close in performance, I could happily live with either, they both have a big robust sound and wide soundstage, they are both tonally excellent are really pretty hard to fault. The Ayre player takes it up a notch, it has a more natural tone and the lower mids are noticably less clouded sounding than the other two. The Ayre is also significantly better on video too. I did not get a chance to use the PL-1 with the progressive outs since that is on a RGB connector so it may not be a fair comparison. The Ayre will only play DVD and CD, so it is not a universal player as is not the Arcam (it will play DVD audio). I did listen to a few SACDs on the Bel Canto and wasn't all that impressed, I much prefer certain regular CD recordings to the SACDs I had on hand. The Ayre retails at 11,750.00 and the Arcam at 3000.00 with the Bel Canto comming in at 9000.00. The Arcam is the obvious best deal of the bunch, in my opinion it offers state of the art CD playback plus DVD at a very reasonable price. If you want one of the best out there check out the Ayre D1-x.