New Esoteric P02 D02

He was given the responsibilities of Tim Crable, as he retired. He told me that corporate was grooming his official fit in the there new program, but to contact him with anything I needed. I had an issue with my G-01 clock, it would not lock. The music would play, but the clock wouldn't stabilize. So after a lot of back and forth, and a call to the East Coast director of operations for Integra, they sent me a brand new clock, which was the right thing to do. After inserting the clock into the system I couldn't critically listen without it. Scott was a big part of the transaction.

Hi Tom, This is good to know... does this mean that Scott is Esoteric Sales/Marketing/Operations manager for Esoteric at Integra?

All: Thank you for the help and advice from the K series and the 02; I've done a LOT of testing of permutations and track by track compare over the last couple of days with the various filter and upconversion & protocol options for PCM on the P02/D02 and this is where I think I'll stay for a while as it gives;

- the biggest, densest and deepest soundstage
- best imaging in all 3 dimensions for the 'crucible recordings' I've used for testing for years
- the deepest, most accurate bass without over-bloom/muddiness
- the most pleasing and roundest notes, best transients and overall musical experience thus far

Caveat: I've stayed away from PCM->DSD on purpose for now. Will test that later after I burn in pure DSD for SACD once the PCM circuits hit 500 hours each. Then we're on to more testing and then even more with the high-throughput USB options; should be done about this time next year at 500 hours per permutation !

Here's the config;

- up-conversion PCM->4Fs (176.4) on P-02, 48-bit ESL3 seems to be the silver bullet!

- digital filter set to On (P-02), resulted in slightly tighter bass, thought FIR on the transport and anything on the DAC would redundant but it really seems to do wonders so filter on P-02 is back on!

- P-02 set to output ESL3 protocol, 24-bit 352.8 is impressive but 48-bit ESL3 176.4 is the best thus far (note above,...skipping test of DSD for now). D-02 set to receive ELS3/176.4 so 48-bit input on dual AES

- up sampling set to 176.4 (D-02), ELS3 *dual XLR inputs", this is 48bit output!!!

- digital filter set to S_DLY2 (D-02), no ringing, all the right elements as highlighted in my opening passage, amazing filter, at least on this system

- clock frequency 22.5792MHz master clock output from D-02, P-02 clocked to D-02, still don't miss the G-03 given clocking improvements in D-02. 22.5792Mhz sounds better than 176.4, the 512x over 44.1 seems to really round things out nicely with the right combination of precision and musicality...

That's all for now, let the burn-in continue :-) !!!

Hy Zephyr, very interesting that your findings on filter selection for D02 are consistent with my preference on K-01... May I ask how S_DLY2 and S_DLY1 differ on D-02?

Saluti, G.

Scott Seftons official title at the time was marketing specialist, and his boss and truly the force that makes things move is Paul Wasek, national marketing manager. There emails are scott.sefton@us.onkyo.com and paul.wasek@us.onkyo.com, they were both very helpful with all things Esoteric back in August.