I bought a new player, purely for Audio performance, but I wanted excellent DVD-A as well as pure DSD SACD decoding, in addition wanted something that made my CDs sound the best they could.

Under $1000 there was really one choice that fit that bill for me, and that was the Denon 2900. All the upgrades from the 2200 go into the audio side. Pure direct modes where all extra processing and displays can be toggled off. Proper bass management (of course DSD needs to go to PCM by default, analog BM is the only way around this as far as I know, not a big deal because nearly all SACD content was first converted to PCM for mixing anyway). This thing is a tank, weights nearly 20 lbs and has completely separete audio and video circuitry, the same Custom BurrBrown 1790 DACs found in the 5900. Beefy power supply and upgraded analog section compared to the 2200 (already a decent unit). There is a reason so many in the modding community have picked the 2900, and that is the high level of components already there. (for my 2 cents, much of modding done after this level is more a matter of difference than better, and I love the performance of the 2900 stock).

For a pure SACD player you may be able to save a couple hundred $$ and have the same performance (I don't know, I haven't personally listened to them). DVD-A isn't totally dead (seems to be picking up steam). BestBuy has a really crappy selection but, online is much better. I own 3 times more DVD-A than SACD....Fleetwood Mac Rumors, Queen The Game, Blue Man Group, Eagle Hotel CA, REM best of, etc. It is very nice to be able to have the flexibility to play both.

Even if they adopt a pure digital stream, I wouldn't be too excited. The DACs and analog stage in the 2900 and 5900 (and I presume the other brands in this $$ range) are better than those in even the best receivers (and most seperates, save for outboard DACs).

5900 and 2900 sound very close to the same, I couldn't hear a differnce until someone mentioned something...so I couldn't be unbiased anymore. 5900's advantage is the ability to do time alignment to SACD (very few do this) which of course puts you back in DSD to PCM conversion.....I wouldn't worry about this until there are more SACDs out that record and mix in DSD...nearly everything in the industry is set up for PCM production, and there are not many made pure DSD....if someone has some good suggestions let me know!

And yes, it sounds spectacular on my Axioms!