New Esoteric P02 D02

I agree it made the sound of both D02 and D03 dacs more refined, smooth and lowered the noise plus it is just under $1K. I recommend at least hearing it. They have also Alpha HC for amplifiers and conditioners, Alpha Analog for pre and turntables. If I am not mistaken this Alpha Digital may also work with class D amps. I am not sure if it would work with SMPS tough, probably HC version is the right choice for the amps.

It hasnt been broken in yet with just an hour, and it sounded less noisy, eliminated the least bit of digital haze from DACs made vocals better, made the music flowing effortlessly as a whole. What can I say, it is a steal for this price. The only area that Esoteric 7300 is slightly better is the bass depth, but like I said it is not broken in yet. I can easily say that this is the best $1k pc cable I have heard challenging more expensive cables.

while it depends on individual taste, but once people compare D-02 with D-01, you will find D-01 is more relax, comfortable, not pushy, than D-02. (D-01 VUK is even better.)

Might be the technical spec of D-02 is better, but unfortunately audio is not only "made" by engineering, otherwise people do not need to "trust your ears".

Nowadays second hand price of P-01/D-01 is the same as new P-02/D-02, we have one more option.

I have A/B compared D-01 and D-02. Similar comments given by my better-half, and other friends who like music/concerts (but do not know audio) in various occasions.

Hi Operalover, how many hours of break-in did D-02 have... and what upsampling / filtering settings had been applied on the two units? G.

comparison done after 500 hours break-in D-02.

tried several upsampling/filtering.

in fact, any upsmapling/filtering setting did not change the fundamental character. (upsampling/filtering only adjusted to the taste preference, not the fundamental character)For example, the exaggerate soundstage, and pushy character.

My friends are amateur concert musicians and conductors. My better-half pointed out the locations of instruments were too far apart compared with those in real concerts.

And more importantly, we were feeling tired after an hour or so of listening. (For example, during the day, we turned on the tuner all the time. We could do so using D-01. But for D-02, we turned it off after an hour or so.)