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Esoteric cd players volume control

Dear Forum Friends,

I would like to know which Esoteric CD players have their own volume control?
I don't want to buy a preamp for my power amplifiers.

Thanks for your help.

128x128rolee910
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,595 posts
 

The XD series does not have a volume control.  There is a volume up/down button on the remote, but the manual says it's for use with Esoteric amps.

There is also an app, Esoteric HR Audio Player, to play audio files on a computer.  It may have a volume control, but I don't think that's what you're looking for either.

I would look into the Teac players.  They may have volume control.

tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,595 posts
 

@rolee910

The Esoteric N-05 XD and N-01 XD have volume controls but do not spin CDs. They are called Network Players.

Here’s a link to a column in Stereophile about a TEAC CD transport. The matching Streamer/DAC/ Preamp is called the UD-701N and it’s written up in the recent email - newsletter I got from Stereophile. Theres a section on the volume control copied below in italics. I’m sure you know that TEAC is the pro side of Esoteric, but I’ll say it anyway. This sounds like what you’re looking for.

TEAC UD-701N streaming D/A preamplifier

In Gramophone Dreams #88, I described the sound of TEAC’s VRDS-701T CD transport as "dense and precise in a way I had never previously heard from digital." I went on to explain, "by ’dense,’ I mean there was a tangible corporeality effected by seemingly infinite quantities of small, tightly packed molecules of musical information."

 

The volume control is all-analog; TEAC describes it this way: "Our TEAC-QVCS (Quad Volume Control System) is a variable gain amp volume control (see block diagram) with four independent circuits for left, right, positive, and negative (L+, L–, R+, and R–)." During these auditions, the 701N provided sufficient gain to drive all three of my amplifiers directly. If you’re using it with a preamplifier, the volume control can be bypassed and the fixed output set to either 2V or 4V.

 

 
 
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tomcy6
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p.s. There is a full review of the TEAC UD-701N streaming D/A preamplifier in the December '24 Stereophile.

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