Any experience with Esoteric K-05?

Jeff,

I own the Salon 2's driven by ARC (Ref 5SE and DS450). The K-05 sounds terrific in my system. I will confess that I've been tempted to upgrade to a K-03. I do not find the K-05 to be too neutral or "cold" - it is quite musical, not fatiguing with nice extended highs, nice and wide soundstage and darn good imaging. Compared to my ARC DAC8 (which I still own along with the Oppo 83SE), I feel the K-03 sounds better.

Mike

Hi Kiwi,
Have you considered the Modwright-modified Oppo 105? Just a thought. I'm extremely impressed with it.

So Kiwi, how is it sounding compared to your Cary 306? I'm also considering the 306 Pro but it may be a bit older in techynology.

In reference to my comment on 4/12 - the last sentence should state - "I feel the K-05 sounds better."

I incorrectly, typed "K-03".

Mike

Hi Jeffkad,

In my otherwise neutral playback system as described above
the scorecard on the Cary Audio 306 Pro vs. the Esoteric K-
03 reads like this.

The Esoteric trumps the Cary for outright resolution, sound-
stage depth and object edging, treble extension and bass
depth.

The Cary trumps the Esoteric for image specificity and
density, mid-bass weight, overall musicality and engagement.

I was very surprised at just how different these two fine
machines sounded considering they are both fully solid state
designs with large linear power supplies and both running
four quality DACs per channel.

There is much more to the story including a rather unusual
finding with the K-03 - which I will write up in due course
in my audio blog.