MORE Esoteric problems


Hi all, I posted an issue with Esoteric CD players a couple of years ago. I bought a UX-3SE from an eBay seller. It skipped all CD's. I called Esoteric. ALL SACD players with the "U" model numbers need to go to Japan because that's where the alignment jig is. $2500.00 at that time JUST for the shipping back and forth. I returned the player to the seller naturally. An Asian gentleman working at TAP electronics told me at that time that the models with the "X" can all be repaired in California. Great I said. I bought an Esoteric X-01. A great player! Now it doesn't read SACD's. I sent it to TAP last week. A follow up call from TAP gave me the dreaded news that NOW the X-01 needs to go to Japan for the jig alignment procedure. WHAT! They did reduce the transportation cost to $1600.00. And this is for shipping only. I think that the audio community needs to send Esoteric a message and boycott ALL Esoteric products. BTW, it's not just their CD players that are required to make the trip to Japan if repairs are needed. I understand that certain models of preamp and integrated amps fall under this requirement as well. How can a company such as Esoteric not do better for the consumer?
128x128jnovak
This post scares me as I have an Esoteric UX 3 Player.  It works perfectly at present but the thought of spending 1600 just for shipping gives me pause. 
Where on earth are they getting these crazy shipping prices from?
Just do your own homework on the net and you will find much cheaper shipping options.

However that aside I agree it is a silly situation where products sold in the USA for the USA market then need to go to Japan to be repaired correctly!
Maybe this explains why my EMM Labs XDS1 has trouble reading some SACD discs (it has an Esoteric mechanism).  Not encouraging news.
Alex Peychev discovered the sacd rot and had a forum which was abuzz with owners that had these decoder boards problems, but he's shut it down.

Since it's introduction SACD has always had many problems, and if it's not with the lasers it was with the horror of the Philips decoder boards with the Mace 2 Furore chip set that had a cancer like bug, that couldn't be fixed, just got worse and worse till the item became a door stop. 
This effected many players that used it, Krell, Music Fidelity, Philips.
 https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/21655-sacd-1000-mods.html

Then Sony had there own set of problems, it could have been the Philips chipset I'm not sure.
Now I'm not sure what Teac used in their Esoteric models, but it's enough for me to steer clear of any SACD players regardless of manufacturer.

This is a "Wayback Machine" cached page of the now deleted APL find. But this did fix the problem either.
https://web.archive.org/web/20070405083533/http://aplhifi.com/SACD1000fix.html

But the many pages of APL forum tech talk about all this is now MIA on the web, CIA stuff from Philips, if you know what I mean.

I did find this post from Alex Pychev
  https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/276524



Cheers George
Here is the 23k hits "archived" forum page 1/3 the way down, that had the thread.
" Announcement: Philips SACD1000 announcement"

https://web.archive.org/web/20120218130109/http://www.aplhifi.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=35...

But it’s been wiped as well, Sony/Philips must have had their heavies visit Alex.

Cheers George
jnovak
Thank You for sharing this important information for Esoteric owners.I knew that I had read about these infractions previously. I did not know which series of players affected? It seems to me that TAP could have an Esoteric rep fly to California once every month to provide Customer Service. Additionally, TAP should have a jig arranger on-site. There are many of you guys that support this brand. Sad.
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Sad to hear of your issue.  Ship the device to California and let Teac flip the bill to japan.
I have owned Esoteric in the past, fortunately without issue, and had considered a newer Esoteric purchase but have reconsidered based on a number of similar threads to this. I’ll be at Axpona next month and I’d like to mention this to the those running the Esoteric room.
I don’t wish to compound the misery of the OP, but why he would have shelled out the kind of cash that Esoteric demands for their products after his initial problem is beyond me