marantz sa8260 or sa14?

The 8260is highly suseptible to read problems. If reliability is important, this unit merits a pass.

agree with above porzibo...

The Sa14 has very nice build quality and and has RCA and balanced outs if that matters. Shows up on AG pretty often.
The Sa8260 does seem to get a lot of complaints.

According to reviewers at the time the stock sound is pretty close.

Finally, the SA14 can be modded for cheap by TRL and turned into an extraordinary machine.

Ihave the SA-14 my son the 8260. He wanted to har the difference so we unplugged his from his system and plugged it into mine and turned it on for three days before doing the test. To do the test we first played a CD through my SA-14 then through his 8260 using the same preamp, speakers, interconnects. There was no question about the superiority of the SA-14. Clearer, more defined, more articulate, more revealing he was not pleased. I have not heard the various Sony models you mention so cannot say about them

I agree with the above comments regarding the SA8260. It's great sounding but slow to read and often won't read. I'm now using a dvd player as a transport. The Sony reads anything everytime and is way faster. What's amazing is it cost waaayyyy less, but then I needed a good dac.