does anyone have experence with the esoteric P70

I think the P70's performance can only be evaluated within then context of its companion DAC, the D70. That being said, I find there is little interest in redbook only tranports at this stage of the game. Esoteric's new single box players with the VRDS disc clamping system feature have created a lot of buzz but I have real doubt's as to whether their redbook performance will exceed that of the P70/D70 combo. Also, their SACD processing involves DSD conversion to PCM which I know is not the preferred conversion technology.

daer linkster have you ever used a P70 and if so what else have you compared it to . what you seem to be saying is the P70 will only work with the D70 . lets put it this way can any one give a comparesion of the P70 to other ultra hi end transports such the levinson 30.6 ,the wadia 270se,
the cec-tl-0 , the forsell air, or the burmester-ref. i am sure these all work with DAC'S outside of there own family.

sorry in my last post i ment the levinson 31.5 transport,the 30.6 is a Dac

From Soundstage review by Marc Mickelson:

Of perhaps greater importance than how the D-70 is connected to the rest of your system is how you connect the D-70 to the P-70. I'm not just talking here about your choice of coaxial or AES/EBU digital cable, but rather about the combo's AES-3 connectivity. This requires that you use two AES/EBU cables and a separate BNC-terminated clock-link cable to slave the DAC to the transport. This configuration not only enables the DAC to convert the 176.4kHz sampling frequency from the transport, it also maximizes the DAC's rejection of jitter, which only improves its sound.

So I don't get too far off on a tangent here, this is by far the best-sounding way to hear the Esoteric combination, which means that you have to use the two pieces together to hear both at their best. Yes, I did listen to them separately, and they sound very good on their own, but when used together and linked in the way I describe above, their sound is far superior than it is when they are linked with a single digital cable -- or to other DACs and transports. Given this, everything you read below regarding the sonics of the P-70 and D-70 applies to using the combo with AES-3 and word-sync connections.

Bottom line: with the AES-3 connectivity option available in the P70 (and its matching D70 DAC), you need to use the P70 with a DAC that allows for this design feature to be implemented. Beyond the D70, I don't know of any other DAC that has this feature. This in no way invalidates its usage as a transport with a simple single cable connection, I simply think it is a bit expensive to purchase this unit without intending to use all its design features that maximizes its performance. Therefore don't but it if you are not willing to buy the D70 at some point.