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esoteric products

Hi Goners!

With the recent purchase of controlling shares of TEAC, Gibson Int. has been on quite a tear solidifying both the instrument, pro and home audio areas of they're growth!

With a consolidation of Onkyo, among others, they have been quoted as saying that Esoteric accounted for only 1.9% of the audio division of TEAC!!

As to the future of Esoteric they again stated that the brand "will have to mature and evolve on it's own"...

With the core group of USA market and matinence people accepting other jobs outside of the TEAC group then, even if Teac still pledges to support the upgrading and repair of the units how long can it be before Esoteric does a nose dive?!!

Is this the reason EVERYONE is dumping they're Esoteric gear? Looks like a dead end for the GRANDIOSE line...

Your thoughts,

Azjake
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statman's avatar
statman
285 posts
 
I have the Oppo BDP-105. I just ordered a K-01X. My last audio player. I can use it's DAC if I decide to ever give up CD or SACD. The Oppo is good at 2 channel analog playback for me but needed something better for playback to compliment the rest of my setup. 
jafant's avatar
jafant
19,618 posts
 
I like Esoteric for SACD-playback only.  I could not seem to get into its CD playback "sound".
statman's avatar
statman
285 posts
 
Jafant,

Why didn't you like the CD playback? Which Esoteric unit? I have not heard that from other owners. I have started buying SACD music and playing them back on the Oppo BDP-105. 
zephyr24069's avatar
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zephyr24069
1,243 posts
 
Statman: if you have K-01X on order (having heard the K-03 and K-01 and hearing reports already from a friend or 2 who went with the K-01X recently, and further, based upon my having owned DV-50s, UX1Ltd, P-03U/D03 and P-02/D-02), you will be very happy with both the Eso’s ability to play SACD as well as CD once you break the unit in fully (see threads on this forum regarding what that takes per playback option given CD, SACD and all the various upsampling and filter options). You'll also face some choices to find your preferred playback combination of upsampling (or none going straight RBCD 44.1 and SACD respectively) and choice of filters (or none).  Again, there are many threads on the forum on this gear, some of whom have alot of notes from Esoteric K and P/D owners regarding the attributes of the various filters and other options.

Earlier Eso units (I’m thinking my DV-50S and UX-1 Limited were admittedly better (subjectively and too my ears) at SACD than CD) but that went away a long time ago as a differentiator. Later Esoteric units (that I’ve heard & owned) excel at both formats and hold their own against alot of competition.

As an aside, I own an Oppo 105D for DVD and Bluray playback for family in the living room. I’ve heard it’s SACD and CD playback and find them very good but nowhere in a class with the P-03U/D-03 I owned for years let alone the P02/D02 or K01 and K03 generation players. All of the above is one man’s opinion...others can help given their listening impressions as well.

The K-01X you are expecting is going to be (IMHO) an eye-opening experience. Use of quality power cords and interconnects benefit this gear very much; what are you using?

Hope this helps...have a great week!
dgarretson
2,598 posts
 

As an owner of a K-01X, I agree with Zephyr that you need to be patient with the long break-in schedule for this unit. Exercise each upsampling and filter option for hundreds of hours before jumping to conclusions about which settings work best. FWIW, after long hours with each option I have settled on 8x upsampling and SLDY2 filter. I’m looking forward to eventually comparing the external HD Player software filters and 2x DSD upsampling to the on-board options.  With that in mind, it's useful that Esoteric thought to include unfiltered PCM and unfiltered DSD settings.

Once you become familiarized with the K-01X, a 10Mhz Rubidium clock with a 75 ohm output like the Stanford Research Systems PERF-10 is a meaningful upgrade, with greater impact than any of the CDP’s upsampling and filtering options.

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