ESOTERIC N-01 Replacement For My PS Audio BHK Preamp & Directstream Dac with Brige ll

I was fortunate to have had an opportunity to A/B the Esoteric Grandioso K1 which is the Same Dac as the N-01 against the DCS Vilvaldi. We listened to them back to back for over 4 hours and I must say that the Esoteric hands down was the most musically engaging of the 2 no question imho ofcourse. Now the last piece of the puzzle will be to audition the Lumin X1.

Bluemartini Dcs has always favored resolution over musicality.

The lumin will easily challenge the NS 01 yet costs $6k less.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Lumin dealers

@audiotroy

I am on a mission to try the Lumin x1 against the Esoteric N-01. I truly hope it does give it a run for the money, I could really use that 6K savings:)

And please do report back, I'd love to hear the outcome.

@blumartini you really should try to demo an MSB Discrete dac; with the Ethernet renderer module and second power supply you have a Roon compliant endpoint that also functions superbly as a preamp; I recently completed an extensive A/B with my Luxman C900u and the end result is I no longer have the C900; If you only do digital and don’t need second set of pre outs you can’t go wrong with something like MSB quality as dac/pre; This is the first dac I heard that is not improved by a preamp, and the c900 easily ranks with the best in the 10-20k range; MSB chassis incredible; check out the YouTube views into their engineering process. 
Good Luck!