Luxman D03X vs D10X

Personally, I would buy an Esoteric. My Esoteric uses the TI/burr Brown pcm1704 r to r ladder dac. It is such an analog sounding player. 

@stereo5 thanks for the response.. Rest of my gear is all Luxman, and would like to keep to that. Are you referring to Esoteric Grandioso K1X? 

@rman9,

I do not know what their latest and greatest is.  The VRDS NEO transport is one of the absolute best in the business and many high end manufacturers buy the Esoteric transport for their own machines.

I have the Luxman D10x and it’s the best digital playback I’ve ever heard.

It’s natural, neutral, and detailed like I’ve never heard from a source before. Directly against the Marantz SA-10 and the Lumin X1 it’s better sounding in those categories and overall enjoyment. I’ve had the same experience with the usb input on the player as well as with disc playback.

If you’ve ever played with digital filter selection on players and listened to the trade offs of each filter in terms of bass definition, full-sounding bass, warmth, forwardness, brightness, or focus/clarity/apparent resolution of the high frequencies, I describe listening to the Luxman as having none of those tradeoffs. It’s as if there is no filter and I am hearing everything on my discs with clarity for the first time. In old discs from the 80’s I hear details and punch I never before heard and didn’t think was there.

I was considering the two top Esoteric players as well but wanted to avoid considering external clocks, power supplies, or filter selection for best sound. I figured that if the Luxman didn’t float my boat, I would try Esoteric but having owned the Luxman for 6 months I have no desire to try the Esoteric at this time.