Esoteric X-01 Limited or new D-03/P-03

Guidocorona,
I know what you mean, but noisy ballbearings are ones from the first day to their dead in 20 or 40 or whatelse years. The noise will be generated by their ball rattling into their steel houses.
Believe me I loved the sound of the P-01. But I could not accept the noise. My former player was a loudless! Accuphase DP 77. The P-01 I got, was not a brand new one. It was some month in action at the dealers show room.

To define "loudless": The Philips drive is specified with:
33 dB; microphone in 10 cm (= 4") distance; angle 90 degrees; room noise less than 20 dB.
I cannot hear anything with my ear in approx. 4" distance to the closed transport (closed by a 5mm thick Plexiglass. That is -for me- loudless.

Dear Deshapiro,
be glad about your noiseless X-01 limited.
If my former P-01 were noiseless I would have been a happy Esoteric fan. But the Japanese Esoteric Technical Support Manager told me: Yes we have problems (at the customers) with the ball bearings noise. We work hard to solve the problems. We can reduce (but not kill) the noise by using "filled" ball bearings.
regards Dittersdorf

I had listened to the X-03LE and the X-10LE for a few hours at a place in NYC. I went into the session preferring the X-03LE but by the time the session was over I was preferring the X-01LE by a noticeable margin. My money does not fall from the sky so this was a serious decision for me.

On delivery the new X-01LE sounded pretty sharp and not pleasing. I had to force myself to remember the demo and endure the break in. At 24 hours it was tolerable but the highs were still annoying me.

I have had my X-01LE for about 2 months. It might have 150 hours on it and from what I have read it is still breaking in. All the sharpness is gone and it sounds really superb. It is pure undistorted music plus the most detail that is between the music that I have ever heard. The X-01 scrapes every last bit off the CD and reproduces it as it was recorded in my opinion. Its not mechanical or cold. Its not warm or sticky either. It’s the music. AND IT IS GOOD.

My ball borings are totally silent. The mechanical build is flawless. The X-01LE was expensive but I have no regrets. I would buy it again. I know at 50 pounds of weight it is solidly built etc. But the value to me is in the sound. Its pure, musical and pleasing with the most detail I have heard on a CD player. I am running a Nick Doshi tube pre amp and a JH50 amp (rebuilt by Nick Doshi). The Esoteric was the perfect match for my hardware and it gave the Jazz punch (when required) that tube systems sometimes lack.

If I had any complaints it would be a nit with the remote. Its overly large and they put a huge area for programming the CD player (which you might use once or twice) and the buttons for actual day to day operation are small with about half of the face space wasted!

It has leather covering that would embarrass the poor cow it came from on the bottom to provide some sort of psychologically luxurious feel for the "status insecure". Its overly large I guess to appeal to the jaded fat bastard audio glutton types… Listen Teac – no need make my ass feel kissed with a 315 gram remote that is festooned with leather You satisfied me with the sound and that is what actually is important with me.

A question please.
For European folks the x01 limited or X01D2 have a universal voltage or not?. I have tried to understand it from Esoteric's web site but with no results. I suppose not.
If not, they can be easily converted to 220-240 volts or this operation has to be done by a Esoteric's technician?
Many thanks
Regards
Piero from Italy

I have had the X-01 Limited for 9 months now and I believe it is finally broken in. It took a long time to trully break in. I had read posts that said the sound would improve up to 700 hours or more of break in. I found that hard to believe - but its true. If I had it to do over - I would stick with the Limited. Saying it sounds great is an understatement!.