Esoteric P03 - D03

Eelii08,

I own the P03/D03 combo and in my opinion, the best way to connect them is via the Dual AES/EBU digital connection. This allows you the flexibility to up convert redbook CD to 88.2, 176.4 or to DSD as well as play SACD's. In my listening tests, I prefer the up conversion to DSD for redbook. If you use the ilink Firewire connection, you can only send the D03 native redbook (16/44.1) and DSD from an SACD as the ilink connection bypasses the upconverter circuit in the P03.

I concur with Babybear. When I owned the P03D03 I preferred dual XLR cables. I would also experiment with the upsampling (176.4 or to DSD) to see what you think. I am actually going in the other direction and will try the X-01D2 to save space in my rack.

A rubidium clock will make a change to the sound, subtle, seems to be a bit rounder and fuller but not worth the asking price unless you find a great deal (I ran mine with a laboratory grade rubidium clock instrument rather than the Esoteric version).

Classicjazz, have you already compared P-03/D-03 combo side by side with X-01 D2? Any comments? G.

G., I never convert CDs to DSD. Sound does just not feel right. Hard to put it in words, but I would say it sounds artificially warm, lacking detail and dynamics.

You basically have 3 options only. Depending which one you choose the D2 will use one set of DACs or the other.

MultiDAC, will use the quad dif per channel BB DACs. For Redbook, by far the best. This mode will only play 16/44.1

1 Bit, uses de AMD DAC (same as for DSD) but for PCM streams. I never use this mode for either Red Book or SACD. Don't really like it.

DSD mode. as expected for SACDs is the best. Don't use this with CDs. Is just not good

You also have a mode called Reference. This will basically choose the "right" mode depending on the type of disc. It basically does what I do. If you insert a CD it will go multiDAC. If a SACD, it will go DSD. I've never seen it select 1 bit.

This unit is very good for a single box solution. Does not have the flexibility of converting, digital filters, playing modes and inputs, but you have 2 set of DACS: the same as the D01 for CDs (although only 4 per channel vs 8 of the D01), and the same as the D03 for SACDs (but only 1 per channel in this case as opposite to 4 of the D03). Again, I fell it is a better CD player than SACD player, in relative terms. Don't get me wrong, SACDs sounds very good as well, but I fell this unit gets almost 100% out of CDs, while this is not the case for SACDs. I have more and more SACDs I like so I wnat to improve in this area. For old CDs now, most of the time I use the streaming device via ethernet. Also looking forward to try this with the DAC.

XLR is what I also thought to be better, babybear and Classicjazz. Did not now about only playing native redbook with ilink. This is important. So XLR it wll be. Not only will be probably less expensive, but also more flexible. And with a very good pair, i doubt it will sound worse.

I'm also interested Clasicjazz to now if you have done a direct comparation. I will be able to answer this very soon myself but was wondering.

Babybear, how do you like the separates? Strong points and weak points if any?

Best
Eli

My advise is if you're going to upgrade to P-03/D-03, only do it if you can buy the reference clock at the sametime. With that the combo is miles better than the X-01.