Esoteric P5/D5 Opinions please

According to Esoteric Europe they did a head to head and the combo lost out to the X01D2. Based upon the comments, it is likely that it's superior to the X-03, which isn't that hard (although it's a good unit at the pricepoint). At the end of the day, as long as the box styling of the X-01 D2 doesn't put you off, that would be the one to go for since it's performance is superior and you don't need two AES/EBU cables, a BNC/BNC SPDI/F for clock, an additional PC and an additional rack space. Even worse, once you factor that all in, the combo is probably more expensive than the X-01 D2.

I have the Esoteric P3 and D5 combo and I used to own the X03se. I thought about getting the P5 but decided against it after finding out it uses an inferior transport to what is currently in the P3. It is my opinion that the transport plays a significant role in the sound of a cdp, especially its ability to resolve low levels of detail. I have said this before, to me, low level details is what makes a song sound real and organic. All that being said, to my ears the P3D5 combo is better than my previous X03se. I heard more detail and better separation of the instruments. It should be noted that I decided on the D5 not for financial reasons. I have a digital music server that I wanted to send through the dac. Strangely, the D3 does not upsample. Instead upsampling is done in the P3. The D5 does upsample and has the latest 32bit AKM dac chips. Both of these factors played an important part in my decision making process. And yes, saving some money was nice too.

Without any emprical data, I would guess that the D2 should at least as good as the P3D5 combo I have. But because of the inferior transport, I imagine the D2 should sound better than the P5D5. All that being said, if you do not need digital inputs, I think the sweet spot in the Esoteric cdp lineup is the X03se or X01ltd.

Hi Tboooe,
Your last comment interest me. Could you elaborate on why you think the X03se/X01ltd (not the X01D2) is the sweet spot in their line up?

I'm particularly interested in the X03se (to save some money), but could stretch to the P5D5 if really necessary. The local agent here doesn't carry the X03se, so I've no way to compare. However I do have the P5D5 combo at home now for demo/purchase...