What is your opinion

I own a Ref 20, Have you tried using the digital out from your current player and tried listening to the dacs in the Ref 20, they arent too bad. I believe they are dual 20 bit motorola processors... Anyway, if you want a more musical player, then The Sony is a nice piece...
I went to a Classe cdp3 if you can find one, and ended up with a Krell kav 300... the Krell was an excellent player for a solid state system.. the Classe ended up in my tube system.. go figure.
Best of luck,
Joe
Custom Audio LLC

I second the Sony idea. The entire ES lineup is very flexible with excellent quality in all aspects. There is something for any budget (even very large ones).

I would suggest starting with a used Sony dvp s9000es dvd/sacd/cd player for about $600 or so.

It's an excellent unit for all three formats and the picture is quite good too. And when you shut down the display, turn off the digital processing, turn off the video processing, etc., the sonics improve quite a bit more.

It's built like a small tank and I believe you'd have to spend substantially more to get better sonics.

If, per chance, you don't like it, you can always sell again for basically what you paid for it.

-IMO