Sony's are known for quality issues. My Samsung is 5 years old and going strong(knocks on wood), it also had much better output than the Sony it replaced which I found out was due to the DAC's. The Sony had a cheap old DAC, the Samsung had the latest DAC at the time in it. I have done some rudimentary searching on DACs for the more common players out there and they all appear to be of the same quality as the one in my older Samsung, but the other parts are still suspect, ie. motors etc.
Personally I think I would look for an older Oppo 980 or 981.
