How much better is Esoteric K-03 vs K-05?

@Denon1, just curious what your thoughts are on using the K-01 direct to the amp. Correct me if I am wrong but I thought the K-01 adjusts volume digitally??

Tboooe, yes K-01 have digital volume control, but because of its 8 dacs per side and 32 bits the impact of the loosing bits is not audibel at all (for me). Two important factor to consider when driving direct,
1.Input impedance of the amplifier. It should be in a higher (like 50 and up) digits.
2. Using great ICs.
So far I like to drive my krell 302e direct. May be if I got very good pre-amp (at least on a level of ARC 5se or esoteric c-03) I might have gotten even better sound (more life) from my system. But this costly and I will not go this road (I can’t even arrange a demo). That was the one of the key reasons I went with k-01 instead of k-03, driving direct K-01 is more harmonically rich and coherent. One thing to notice, before make any judgment on esoteric driving direct any amp, one needs to burn the digital control "ON" option for a good 300-400 hours.

Jeffkad,
I tried, as some experienced guys on this forum advised, the 4x up sampling with s_dly1 filter, but the sound (in my system) still had been more analytical that I wanted it to be. Later I found K-01 and K-03 overview of some guy and he recommended no upsampling and S-DLY1 filter.
I decided to try this combo and felt ( after braking in this combo) that this is the best combo for me. The sound became much more natural with bigger soundstage and more air. I really enjoy it now.

Denon1,

I would agree with your setting, it gives almost a 3D sound stage, very natural, good detail, body and for once I forget about what format I am listening to. Sounds like great music period.

I have a K03 and recently stopped using it preampless and now added an Ayre K5xe-MP preamp and have an awesome improvement. Im not buying the esoteric extra dacs and bits making up for the one bit of loss for every 6db of attenuation. I can easilly hear it. What caught my ear was the FM; I can play it at moderate volume levels and still have awesome resolution. The Esoteric needed to play at near full throttle to have the same amount of resolution (thats the digital volume control losing the bits-even if they are extra bits...I think the bits thye are losing are still too important). Just my ears with the player and my thoughts...

Anyone who can make a comparison of the k-05 versus the x-03SE?