esoteric products

Thanks Jafant much appreciated. I have about 200 hours on the unit now. In comparison to SACD vs CD, Yes SACD depending on the disc sounds fantastic. I also have some CD's that sound very good on the K-01X! It appears they advanced the playback capability of both formats. I am still hearing instruments and "air" in voices that were never heard in my prior setup with the Oppo BDP-105. They sound so naturally clean and crisp with the ability to actually "hear" the lyrics on the songs without reading the accompanied lyrics often on the booklet . I never experienced a more wide and deep soundstage reproduction. I had read on the other forums from other owners about the wide presentation, but to hear it in person is a mind blowing experience! 

Statman/aka Sharp 1080

Statman/Sharp1080: Glad to hear you are loving the new player! They have drastically improved both formats over the years the and K-01X surely is like the P-02/D-02 in that sense as well.  I'm often awed by how realistic and near-vinyl and equal to vinyl my system sounds with the latest Esoteric gear.  Enjoy!!!

Jon2020: How do you like the N-05? What are you using in terms of NAS or local/remote cloud storage?

Hi zephyr24069,

Just a quick update on the N-05 from my previous post.

The N-05 has a rear panel usb A-port for a thumbdrive transport. Over the weekend, I compared thumbdrive plus AQ Jitterbug ported to the rear vs. thumbdrive ported to the PC which then relays the usb signal via the iFi USB 3.0 to the N-05’s usb B-port. The USB 3.0 regenerates the usb signal and isolates usb power noise from the audio signal

Well, the result is a jaw-dropping experience with night and day difference between the direct thumbdrive-AQ Jitterbug-dac approach and the previous PC-USB 3.0 - dac set-up. More clarity, dynamics, open soundstage, airy highs, fleshed out instruments, musical.....!

That said, Redbook sounds absolutely stunning with the thumbdrive-AQ JB-dac configuration. Of course, hires pcm/dsd sounds fabulous too but the gap is slightly narrowed such that at no point at all when listening to Redbook ripped to FLAC, do I feel that I am missing hires.

It would be interesting to A/B the N-05 configured in this way vs the new K-01X with CD/SACD spinning in its transport and/or with music files through its usb B-port.

Jon. :)

Thank you....that's great to know!