I bought the Denon on ebay a couple weeks ago after doing significant research on the Sony and the Pioneer, and also Meridian's product. I came to the same conclusions that you did, John. However, I have not had the opportunity of comparing the Denon with better CD only players since my system has been and is analogue based. John, do you think the difference between the Denon 5000 and say the Sony XA7ES is merely digital to analogue converters? Did you also tried the Denon, or any other CD transport with an out board converter, such as those from MSB?
