To Howard Kneller,
I enjoyed reading your review of the new Esoteric [Grandioso] separates, in part because I own the K-01 player and have been fascinated with the build quality of Esoteric transports. Having foolishly jumped on the SACD bandwagon early, I soon discovered the long-term effects of Philips transport issues and the massive failures all the machines that used them wrought. This drove me to Esoteric. Ironically, most of my listening with the K-01 today is with standard CDs. I am continually blown away by this player’s sound on just Red Book.
A few things I’m curious about with your experiences: Did you experiment with the clock both on and off? I’m just wondering what role the clock made overall. And for the DAC? Just wondering what role, for example, the DAC by itself would have made, or the transport mated to another DAC. If I were to slowly upgrade my K-01, would first adding the D1 make a difference? Or the clock? Or using the P1 transport with the internal DAC in the K-01? I’m trying to do this incrementally, but the nature of these beasts does not make it easy. Thanks again for a very insightful review.
Phil Hammer
United States
There are very few transport mechanisms, if any, like the Esoteric VRDS units. They are simply in a class by themselves. Also, I agree, Red Book over the K-01 is absolutely ravishing. In fact, if you ask me to grab my best-sounding discs, I am going to primarily go for Red Book, not the many SACDs that I have here. I have the K-01X in house now. It will be interesting to play DSD downloads though that unit, and see how they fit into the picture. I am breaking it in now.
The G-01 clock made a very substantial improvement when connected to the Grandioso gear. If you are spending that kind of money to begin with, it would be a wise choice to spend a bit more and get the clock.
But maybe the way to go is to start with the D1. The K-01 can be used as a transport with a pair of D1s, although that player won't perform as well as the P1. This is because there is so much more data that passes through Esoteric's new transmission format, ES-Link4.
If you upgrade your system incrementally, starting with the D1 makes sense. Then you could add the P1 and/or G-01. Or if you primarily listen to computer audio, you may decide to just stick with the K-01, adding just the D1 and G-01.
Please let me know how it goes. Thanks. . . . Howard Kneller
