Esoteric P-02 / D-02 sound

Thanks for posting this....I was wondering as well. Anyone with feedback and listening experience with these units, please respond!

I was hoping at this point that someone would have posted listening impressions of the P-02 and D-02. I am hopeful that reviving this thread will yield some better results!

I have been listening the D-02/P-02 combo for 2 months now and have a hard time putting into words the great music this pair makes. I own an X-01/D2 which is no slouch, but the gap between the two players is amazing. Everything the X-01 does well, detail, dynamics, rythym, transients the 02s do better and the things it doesn't do well, that ruthless exposure of bad sounding material and harshness of bright recordings the 02s have eliminated. I have listened to Esoterics for a few years now and have found that people either like them or they don't, no in betweens. I had a K-01 , which I traded as part of the purchase for the 02s, and it is clear that Esoteric is a different sound now then the X series , and the 02s are clearly world class. The quietness between tracks is dead silence and the deliniation of instruments and sounds is stunning. I hear sounds in the music that not only did I never hear before, that at times I look around the room to look for the source of the non music noises you could only hear with the spooky quiet background these players originate the music from. I could not be more pleased with these pieces and not sure how they can be improved upon ! And anyone fortunate enough to own these should be trilled, it is like dating a super model, for sensory appetite it doesn't get any better, and you can shut them off when your done!

I'm in the middle of what will be a hard-fought upgrade transaction with a very difficult seller (have 40+ pages of email and other comms, glad to provide details on this challenge and the seller so people can avoid him,....communicate with me on in-mail) and after a month, finally have a P-02 installed in the system in place of my 7 1/2 tried and true P-03U Transport. The D-02 is still outstanding and will likely become a 'longer story' with a potentially legally troublesome ending (for the Valley Stream & Lynbrook NY-based seller in question) so the P-02 is feeding my existing D-03 Dual Mono DAC with incredible results.

The holy grail of this hobby so to speak, is to be able to achieve very detailed and accurate playback with all possible inner detail retrieved from the recorded medium while also having organic, musical and non-fatiguing playback. As much as I love the P-03U/D-03 combo all these years, it's hard to put into words what additionally the P-02 brings to the table. The difference and upgrade in all these key areas is not subtle and is incredibly impressive! I'm extremely happy with the P-02 after only 2-3 days and cannot wait for the D-02 to arrive!

I will miss my tried and true P-03U and D-03; they will be posted soon but the P-02 and D-02 are in the system now and....

All I can say is "WOW!" in terms of the improvements that the new 02 combo brings to the table; they extract so much more from anything I've thrown at them and provide a massive sound stage with incredible depth and great imaging while still providing a very organic and musical presentation. In addition, the frequency range and particularly deep bass resolution and extension of the new 02 combo is truly "off the charts!"

I've experimented with various settings in the first 24 hours and thus far I am tending towards burning in the following combination first;

- up-conversion PCM->4Fs (176.4) on P-02
- digital filter set to On (P-02)
- P-02 set to output ESL3 protocol
- up sampling set to 176.4 (D-02), ELS3 *dual XLR inputs"
- digital filter set to FIR1 (D-02)
- clock frequency 176.4 with G-03x driving (will try D-02, no G-03x at some point)

I've read several reviewer/other posts and have tried S_DLY1 (apodizing) filter1 as well as NoFilter on the D02 and NoFilter on the P02. Thus far, the above seems to be the best overall settings for my ears and how the units sound now but we'll see how things burn it and how it turns out overall. I will also try up-converting to both PCM via Dual XLR at 352.8 and PCM->DSD up-conversion at some point though initial tests of each seemed to indicate the above list is where I am going to start.

There are so many options with how these can be configured (have not even gone near the USB input yet!) that I look forward to a long and happy set of experiments and alot of listening with these units.

Update:

I've done additional testing both with and without the G-03x and the master clock in the D-02 yields at least equal results to having the extra OCXO standalone clock (G-03X) in the system. I currently have pulled the G-03X out of the circuit and will now post it with the P-03U and D-03 when I offer them.

I've got the D-02 set to output a master word clock out at 512x44.1 (22.5792 MHz) to allow the full range of upconversion rates and DSD playback with the P-02 slaved to the D-02's master clock. Great results,...here is the current config;

- up-conversion PCM->4Fs (176.4) on P-02
- digital filter set to On (P-02)
- P-02 set to output ESL3 protocol
- up sampling set to 176.4 (D-02), ELS3 *dual XLR inputs", this is 48bit output!!!
- digital filter set to FIR1 (D-02)
- clock frequency 22.5792MHz master clock output from D-02, P-02 clocked to D-02