Esoteric DV-50 vs. Accuphase DP-75V

I had a brief session with the Esoteric and although it’s a decent machine capable of playing different formats, the Wadia 861 walked all over it on redbook CDs. In direct comparison the Wadia was more relaxed, smoother and way more refined; simply in an entirely different league. A few months back I had a chance to compare the mentioned Wadia with the Accuphase DP-75V and let me tell you, the Accuphase is in a league of its own: even more refined than the Wadia, more detailed, harmonically rich and very, very analog-like sounding. It’s my reference for redbook CDs and will probably remain so for a long time.

It is not a like with like comparison. DV-50 shall lose to DP-75v in redbook CD performance as it is a universal player which offers every aspect of music format access:
SACD Stereo/Multi;CD;24/192;DVD-V;DVD-A;MP3,etc

Perhaps you can try SACD format comparison with other SACD players in market. Not that far in difference.

About the DV-50- in audio- it is all about the driver that is controlling the hardware. A skilled driver will achieve A+ performance with the DV-50. An average driver will dismiss the player as "decent".

Agree with Reb1208.

I brought a DV-50 with the intention that it will be only used for SACD, DVD-A and DVD-V. For the red book CD, I had a Wadia 270 + 27ix system.

In the first week of usage, the DV-50 is just so so. However, after a week of intense running-in, the sound improved tremendously. Then I started to take the DV-50 serious.

I enabled the CD-direction option, turned off the video circuit and display, added a grounding wire to the pre-amp, put the DV-50 on a proper auido platform. Then the sound improved to another level.

SCAD play back from the DV-50 was already better than the Wadia playing the CD layer. The CD play back of DV-50 was still behind that of the Wadia. Basically, the DV-50 CD play back is too bright and the low frequency lack enough control and was misty. At that point, I also noticed that I have to use a rather low volume setting in my pre-amp for the DV-50. It seemed to suggested that the voltage of the output of DV-50 is too high.

I immediately changed to use the RCA instead of the XLR output of my DV-50. Bingo! It solved most of the problems. After a few more days of running in, the CD play back from DV-50 is still behind that of the Wadia, but by not much.

I was surprised, excited and considered that it might not be worthwire for keeping the wadia combo. So I sold the Wadia combo together with my ML 380S pre-amp and brought a ML 32 pre-amp. I can tell u that the preformance of DV-50 + ML32 is way better than that of 270+27ix+380s.