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esoteric products

Hi Goners!

With the recent purchase of controlling shares of TEAC, Gibson Int. has been on quite a tear solidifying both the instrument, pro and home audio areas of they're growth!

With a consolidation of Onkyo, among others, they have been quoted as saying that Esoteric accounted for only 1.9% of the audio division of TEAC!!

As to the future of Esoteric they again stated that the brand "will have to mature and evolve on it's own"...

With the core group of USA market and matinence people accepting other jobs outside of the TEAC group then, even if Teac still pledges to support the upgrading and repair of the units how long can it be before Esoteric does a nose dive?!!

Is this the reason EVERYONE is dumping they're Esoteric gear? Looks like a dead end for the GRANDIOSE line...

Your thoughts,

Azjake
128x128azjake

Showing 3 responses by dgarretson

dgarretson
2,588 posts
 
From filings it appears that TEAC annual revenues are around $185M. I don't know how much of this is attributable to its audio divisions, but assuming 1.9% of total revenues, Esoteric is no larger than $3.5M. This is decent revenue for a high-end audio company-- doubtless much higher than sales of any of its direct competitors (e.g. DCS, MBL, EMM). However, viewed within the broader landscape of consumer/pro electronics it is(like most other high-end audio manufacturers) a tiny number. But so are Corvette sales.... Hopefully Gibson will understand the value of a statement brand. I have doubts, but am very much enjoying a new K-01X.
dgarretson
2,588 posts
 
+1 Zd542. Sitting next to my K-01X is a highly developed Twisted Pear Buffalo DAC. It implements the same ESS reference Sabre DACs as top Oppo, but in a more sophisticated dual-mono configuration with 12 linear shunt power supplies that surpass Oppo by a good margin. While it has some very nice qualities, the K-01X is better.

I've had the cover off the K-01X. There is 70 lbs. of formidable guts in there & no free lunch.
dgarretson
2,588 posts
 

As an owner of a K-01X, I agree with Zephyr that you need to be patient with the long break-in schedule for this unit. Exercise each upsampling and filter option for hundreds of hours before jumping to conclusions about which settings work best. FWIW, after long hours with each option I have settled on 8x upsampling and SLDY2 filter. I’m looking forward to eventually comparing the external HD Player software filters and 2x DSD upsampling to the on-board options.  With that in mind, it's useful that Esoteric thought to include unfiltered PCM and unfiltered DSD settings.

Once you become familiarized with the K-01X, a 10Mhz Rubidium clock with a 75 ohm output like the Stanford Research Systems PERF-10 is a meaningful upgrade, with greater impact than any of the CDP’s upsampling and filtering options.

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