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
They just debuted a new line of integrated amps, Grandioso F1, F-03A, F-05 and F-07 plus a new limited edition customized black case version of the K-01X (BR), K-03X (BR) and F-03A (BR) for their 30th anniversary out of Japan with availability in other countries reported to be a bit later this year. 

I would say this company under the new owners is very alive and well.
Statman,

DV/SA- 60 player was my listening experience. The SACD playback crushed its CD playback.
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. :)