Esoteric K-01

Thank you for the nice words Matjet, I appreciate it!

If anyone would care to comment on my observations and conclusions, I would love to hear from you (that includes you Alex).

I think you are on the right track about external clocking.

The single box player transport clock is indeed slaved to the DAC clock. If you use external clock, you are slaving the DAC clock to it, which then slaves the transport.

With separates, DAC clock and Transport clocks are directly slaved by the external clock.

While there might be some benefit using external clock with a single box player of given synchronous design, the improvement is a lot more pronounced with separates, IMHO!

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev

To chime in on the topic input quality here, I'm also inclined to state that, over the years, Audiofeil´s sour sarcasm and aggressiveness are hardly enjoyable. Ceaseless negative posting in the h-cat preamp thread comes to mind. Maybe Audiofeil has lost sight of the fact that he is a dealer, while AP invents and manufactures his machines. Or maybe, he rather has not? Clearly, the dealerless business model of the genius-freaks behind APL, Wyred, H-Cat, Empirical Audio, Altmann and many others is quite contrary to what might be to the liking of a noblemainstream-products retailer.

Yes, some inventor-entrepreneur´s model politics and marketing slogans (New World Order and the like) may be questionable or well over the top. However I find the existence of those tiny avantgarde/non mainstream companies refreshing and vital. As well as their founder´s contributions in the forums, as long as sales intentions are not blindingly obvious.

Matjet, my own limited experience on Esoteric X-01 Limited and Esoteric P-03/D-03 combo driven by G-0S clock are consistent with the opinion that external clocks appear to have little or no impact on single box units, but can have a major impact on the sound of twin boxes.

Every time I heard G-0S driving X-01, I found the effect to be imperceptible. Conversely, G-0S always had a clarifying effect on P-03/D-03 that has ranged from major to profound, depending on the IC being used.

I am inclined to suspect that G-0S may end up being also a negligible factor on the APL NWO variants and on the new Esoteric K-01.... but only direct experience can yield certainty.

As Bill is an Esoteric dealer, I invite him to share his knowledge on the effect of external clocks on various Esoteric single and multi-box players.

G.

Hi Guidocorona,

I tried the Esoteric G-ORb with the K-01.

Use of an external clock with CD/SACD players, especially single box players is still quite controversial. There is a lot of misinformation floating around. Part of the problem, in my opinion, is the detailed reviews by Robert Harley in Absolute Sound on the G-ORb and more recently with dCS Puccini. One would believe, after reading these reviews, that an external clock (especially a super accurate one like the G-ORb), significantly improves both one and two box players. That simply is not the case. I also suspect that Mr. Harley's concise description of how a more accurate external clock reduces and/or eliminates jitter is very wrong. If I am correct, he has done a great diservice to the high end audio consumer community, creating a great deal of confusion.

I spent a great deal of time listening to all types of music at different volume and from different listening posisitions (mostly prime listening position). I tried A-B comparison as well as lengthy listening sessions. I focused on various aspects of the music reproduction (timbre, decay, 3 dimensional sound staging, instrument separation ('air'), bass, treble, cymbals, guitar and piano notes and decay, transients, voice, classical, blue grass, jazz,rock, you name it, I tried it. I really wanted the G-orb to improve the sound in some manner, but in all honesty it didn't do a thing to improve the sound of the K-01. The K-01 sounds EXACTLY the same with and without the G-ORb; that is SUPERB! So, I will not be buying the G-ORb to go with my Esoteric K01.

I encourage coomments from all on this interesting, controversial topic. That includes you too Bill. We have heard from Alex on this subject. What are your thoughts?

To All: Bill is probably very knowledgeable about audio equipment. I am sure we could learn a lot from him. It is unfortunate that he chooses to expend his energy and time 'policing' Audogon rather than comtributing by sharing his knowledge and ideas.

I'm on the same boat. I did not hear the improvement from adding a clock to my Puccini integrated player, and yet I can clearly hear its effect on dCS separates.