What's a great multi format player under a $1,000?

The Denon 2910 is well under that #, new, in stock form and I imagine the 3910 is as well, at least used.

At $1K for a multi-foramt, I think your options are limited. Not sure "great" is in the cards. The advantage of the Denon is that if you like, you can have it modded later, unless you are philosophically opposed to it. If you are, then maybe you want to think about older gen multi-players like the Sony 9000ES, although it apparently has some known glitches. Or maybe a Muse unit, although I am not sure if there is on w/DVD-A that will come in under $1K. The problem with a DAC and Transport is that you can't get SACD (not even sure if you can get DVD-A) that way unless you go with the megabuck EMM stuff, IIRC. BTW, if you have DVD, you will get multi-channel.

Jim- Unfortunately, I believe that I am correct with respect to a transport/DAC that can do hi-rez you are looking at about $6-8K and it won't give you DVD-A. Certainly for those $, you can look at one of the Esoteric one box units, or for 1/2 that, a modded Denon. I did look into the costs of modding an older unit and except for the purchase price of the player, its the same (duhhh!). So that route doesn't help much. Modded players do not retain quite as much value, so you may save something for looking for one already modded here. Thats what I did. Or you might consider an Underwood Level 1 mod on a 2910. If you don't need digital video out, then that is a good way to go and I think you can get into it for just a little over a grand.

Never heard the XA 777 but it supposed to be a darn good player. Although I really like the Exemplar/Denon I have I have not been at all impressed with the software available in hi-rez. So if I were to do it again, I would concentrate on a great CDP and let anything else fall by the wayside. Don't get me wrong, the Exemplar is a damn good CDP and perhaps I would have ended up with in anyways, but the multi-player idea has not been a real issue for me, as of yet.