Esoteric X-05 or Wadia 860

Although I have no direct experience with either, one of my customers recently traded his Wadia 581 on an Esoteric X-05 i think, and was very impressed by the Esoteric.

If you could streatch your budget to $4400, you can get an ARC CD-7. A much better player than both mentioned above IMO.

Wadia 860 drive is discontinued - this is a high risk purchase.

Thanks for the very informative replies thus far. Based on what I've seen here, the 860 really isn't a good solution due to the fact that the drive is discontinued, and that a superior model (581) was bested by the X-05. Another possibility is the ARC CD3 MK2. I really need to keep the budget under 4k - particularly now.

Adamg - take into consideration, that CD-3 and Esoteric are two very different sounding players.