New Esoteric P02 D02

Hey Pharma, I see you have ranked the Esoteric DACs and Transports. After reading your prior posts, I would not have expected you to rank the D-02 & P-02 so highly in all your catagories. As a matter of fact, I did not think you were that fond of the D-02 . My impression is that you like other manufacturers DACs and Transports as well if not better, so how do you rank them all?

Hi Guido, Great hearing from you, I was in Your area for a Super Bowl a few years back, and stopped into Antonne's to catch some tunes, wanted to see where Stevie Ray Vaughn got famous! Great time, listening to music live sure makes this hobby tough. There are times when I have it dialed right in, and it sounds live, only for the next song to expose the truth. There are so many variables and preferences to explore, to chain together a perfect combination is like winning the lottery, it happens, but theres alot of luck. We can throw our opinions around, and rank components, and talk about preferrences, but this is very humbling, and at a great cost. A great cost for me anyway. I don't have any dispossable income to use on this stuff, so I need to make good decisions, and thats why I bought Esoteric . I like the design philosophy, the house sound, the styling, and the resale. Esoteric is a sound you either like, or not, very few in betweens. Its about detail at the cost of so called musicality, its about deliniation of sound like no other, its about extreme bandwidth and dynamics, at the cost of sweetness. But, dialed in with the right cables, and speakers, its about those moments when all those separate sounds become a whole like no other . And the whole analog digital thing, if we liked spinning records, we wouldn't be on this thread trying to feel right about what we buy, we would be slugging it out on some analog thread doing the same thing.
So for my money, the Esoterics stand the test, great looks, good resale, terrific dynamics and detail, and a sound I can live with without second thoughts. The X-01 is an excellent transport, I still have my X-01/D2 in the chain for multi channel music. Still can't listen to the Eagles Hotel California in 2 channel . There are some things we like better than others.
And , oh ya, its not like the media is helping us out with this stuff. Thats the biggest problem of all, listen to some of the music they sell us, and the stuff we play it on makes it sound evermore what it is, crap!! That seems to be what we should be sharing about, what media to stay away from, not matter what we chain together, feed it junk and junk comes out!
But anyway, I think your set up is pretty cool, reading about the DAC you are using, it is highly regarded. How much did it improve the X-01, I haven't played my X-01 through the D-02, maybe I should give it a try!

To Colekat :

I place Esoteric transports above all. I am not a big fond of The new D02 dac in some areas I mentioned before. I think K series of single box players and D02 are the first examples of a new era in Esoteric sound and the following Dacs will be better. I compared extensively p01vuk, p02 and p03 with Accuphase Dp 900 as well. I liked p01vuk, and p02 over Accuphase transport in all the areas I give importance to. Also as you know The new dCS Vivaldi is using Esoteric vmk3 and also Soulution is using Esoteric transport. It is well proven top transport. There are other choices like belt driven CEC which I didnt audition, but heard that it had some reliability problems related to belt.
I need to hear the new Esoteric D1 and dCS Vivaldi Dac for a comparison listing.
For The transports they are the top reference in my list.
As for The Accuphase I would rank it highly only in an Accuphase only system. I liked Esoteric (p01vuk/d03 or d02) better in most areas, except ultimate refinement than Accuphase. I simply had more fun and enjoyed the music through Esoteric than Accuphase. So, in fact I like the house sound of Esoteric but the older one, not the new one which can be related to the AKM dac chips or the output stage. I also like Soulution cd players.
Like I said it all comes down to personal taste.

To Colekat:

There is one area that I disagree regarding the Esoteric gear, their resale value is not good if you paid for a new gear.

To colekat:

I paid around 30k for a new special order p01 vuk in 2011 November (almost 2012). It is resale value is aound 10-12k now. I paid 13K for D03 Dac in March 2011 and its resale value is around 5-6k if you are lucky. I paid 15k for g0rb and it is resale value is 6-7K. As for the new D02 DAC I got a good deal for a new one for 15k (list 24k) and its resale value is less than 11-13k if you can sell it.
But if you buy them used or demo they pretty much keep their value depending on the deal.