I had a sony DA50ES that suited me fine until HDMI came along! My speaker set up are the mordaunt shorts performance series.
The Marantz certainly have good audio performance but I guess this will improve with time.
I also have a Toshiba XE1 which I bought before the demise of HD DVD and also bought heaps of HD DVDs cheaply! The unit has True HD and DTS master capability and I am very happy with the unit so far.
I guess my next blue ray would be the Panasonic BD50 or the Pioneer LX70 or even the Marantz Blue ray player.
Residing in Australia is not entirely satisfactory as we get the models later then you and also they are more expensive!!