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Question for Owners of Esoteric SACD Players

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Posted on June 27, 2014 at 20:16:35
Doktor Brahms
Audiophile

Posts: 611
Location: Southeast
Joined: November 25, 2004
 Fellow Inmates:

I own an Esoteric K-05 SACD player. My question has to do with redbook rather than SACD playback. The Esoterics have selectable digital filters/oversampling rates for RBCD playback. When I set up my player I selected the DSD conversion setting for CD, and I've never felt the need to fuss around with the other settings. But I am curious if any of you Esoteric owners have done comparisons of the various settings. Do you have a favorite? I'll be interested to hear your preferences. Thanks!

 

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RE: Question for Owners of Esoteric SACD Players, posted on June 29, 2014 at 11:53:15
QuadESL63
Audiophile

Posts: 490
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Joined: December 8, 2005
 I have a K-03. I actually prefer with no conversion/upsampling and filtering for RBCD, at least for now. Still need to experiment a bit more. Also, strangely enough, I patched a Micromega CD transport to the Esoteric COAX input and I find this sounds slight better than playing the RBCD in the Esoteric drive with the same settings. But even that I am going back to no DSD conversion for 16 bits 44.1 kHz sources.

And Esoteric has changed how their players sounds: from memory the older X series sound more clinical than these "new" K series players.

 

FWIW..., posted on June 29, 2014 at 16:03:03
krisjan
Reviewer

Posts: 929
Joined: May 6, 2001
 I used to own a Cary 306 SACD player that offered similar upsampling capabilities. After experimenting with the higher sampling rates (if I recall properly, I think 192 kHz was tops) I ended up with a 2X rate for everyday RBCD listening. I found the higher rates did not sound as natural to me as 88 kHz - they sounded a bit edgy and artificial. Not sure that helps with your Esoteric unit but the nice thing is you can try different rates and then decide for yourself.

 

RE: Question for Owners of Esoteric SACD Players, posted on July 1, 2014 at 08:42:42
fantja
Audiophile

Posts: 15518
Location: Alabama
Joined: September 11, 2010
 I would be interested in this comparison as well.
I have auditioned both the DV-50 + DV-60 and found the RBCD action to be very poor. The SACD component, however, was simply outstanding!

 

RE: Question for Owners of Esoteric SACD Players, posted on July 1, 2014 at 10:22:09
dale88
Audiophile

Posts: 61
Location: Western Idaho
Joined: March 17, 2006
 I have a K-03. I prefer the sound of no upsampling. And if your model has the FIR 1 filter setting, that is the one I keep going back to.

FIR 1/ No upsampling.

 

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