esoteric products

I agree. My K-01 player is still serving me well but I will not upgrade to another Esoteric product when its time is up.

There are a good number of reasons for not upgrading to another Esoteric product :-
1. Poor resale
2. No streaming
3. Value for money upgrade
For current owners of an Esoteric player, the best value proposition would be to keep it as a cd/sacd transport and add a hi-res music server/streamer/dac for pcm/dsd/mqa.

Fully agree. The K series sound fabulous and is built like a tank to last a lifetime. The only problem is that the dac section would need regular hardware upgrades and this cannot be done by the manufacturer a la Ayre products. Also, the transport mechanism will fail one day and I am keeping my fingers crossed that it would last at least 10 years. If it does, as a transport, it is a keeper for both redbook and sacd. When the dac upgrade bug smites, I would probably go with the Bricasti M1.

I think a valid point has been raised in this thread, which is, the resale value of Esoteric products has plummeted dramatically in a short space of time. This is a fact, not mere casting of aspersions.
Current owners of Esoteric gear would be understandably anxious. Be that as it may, whatever the reason could be, it does not bode well for potential owners of new Esoteric products. Current owners like myself, who will have to upgrade one day, have no axe to grind. I have at any rate, resigned myself to an upgrade path as laid out above.
It may also be better to wait until the MQA dust settles. Turnover time for digital products burn so fast and furious with each passing day that to commit anything north of 20k may not be a prudent investment for digital nowadays.
This hobby for most of us is all about value for money. I doubt any of us who post here regularly are cost-no-object hobbyists. That we compare different components in different price bands indicates that we are essentially looking for value.

This is sad news indeed. 

Anyway, I have traded in my K-01 player for a non-mechanical dac/streamer in the form of the N-05 when an opportunity came up recently. Having ripped all my cd's to flac, I can now dispense with the transport.

One would expect anything mechanical like a transport to ultimately fail one day.

Jon2020: How do you like the N-05? What are you using in terms of NAS or local/remote cloud storage? cloud storage?

Zephyr24069,

The N-05 has turned out to be an amazing surprise. Its usb implementation has improved by leaps and bounds over that of the K-01’s. The 2nd Gen 4490 chip which AKM calls "Velvet Sound", the enhanced power supply and improved analog output stages have all come together to make it truly way, way better than the K-01.

The N-05 configured as described in my system, beats the K-01 spinning discs in its transport in every sonic regard. I am getting such great sound now from my thumbdrive/pc that I do not yet intend to move on to NAS via ethernet or a standalone music server. To me, the N-05 playing ripped flac files via usb is a massive upgrade from the K-01. Considering its price, it is very great value indeed for the money.

J. :)

zephyr24069,

You have a srunning system with Esoteric source/electronics and others.

I can imagine how much better the N-05 would sound in your system with the Rubidium clock.

Cheers!
J.

I feel your pain. Tossing the P-10 transport is painful and so is the shipping and repair bill.
I bit the bullet a while back by replacing something mechanical with a server/computer.
My most humble opinion would be to use the huge savings from the shipping/repair costs to upgrade the dac to something from the same stable like the Directstream/Junior and play ripped redbook files from there.

Happy hunting!
J.

PS Audio Directstream Junior vs rivals...

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/08/digital-audio-comes-of-age-with-ps-audios-directstream-jun...

Today’s top of the line Oppo decks beat anything in the esoteric line....Dumbest thing Ive read on this site in a long time..but as they say you cant argue with stupid!.

Stupid is as stupid does........ :)

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. :)