Esoteric N01XD DAC / Streamer - Here Is My Review Of This Unit!  

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Now we are talking ..... I have heard many products by Esoteric .... all were amazing

Excellent review, thank you Jay

Well reviewed we always adored Esoteric and Japan.

Most excellent review, your best to date🥂🥂

Your description rings all my bells. Sounds like a winner.

Love it. Thanks Jay.

Great review Jay 👍👍

Magnificent review! Calm, collected, great presentation format. You are a professional reviewer for all to respect. You know what you are talking about.

Great review. The most exciting thing you said was reviewing the HIFI Rose in the future.

Nice work & review!

Again ..I’m freaking in awe 😅

Jay: very interesting. I’ve never heard Esoteric sound described this way. A change from what I’ve heard in the past. Thanks.

Nice review and please more review on other equipment 👌👍

Sounds like a ton of value for the money! Love this dac!

Hi Jay, thanks for your great review! I just purchased a K-01XD and am still in search of a proper preamp - currently using a SPL Director MK2 as make-shift. Been thinking about Constellation preamp 1.0 or Esoteric’s own C1X Solo, but no opportunity to test.

Jay is killing it 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 👍

Apart from synergy effect of a system the decay is also to do with frequency range and signal noise ratio.

Those Esoteric displays are Late 80's look! Jay, your Evaluation is accurate in what they do and what they don't! 💪

Please do a comparision video with the other dacs.

Огромное спасибо!

Great review! I didn’t known any Japanese co is known for digital maybe a bit from accuphase. One of your comments on note decay bothers. It indicate they didn’t get group delay right which differentiates poor digital from any analog. It could be internal clock implementation or something more fundamental. I own a Linn Klimax DSM which sounds really close to their lp12.

I own one. A clock really takes it up a notch!

You’ve mentioned in the past you would comment on your opinion of the $5,000 HIFI Rose RS 150B . The display on the Rose is spectacular. How do you feel about the sound? I would greatly appreciate your opinion.

I’m still rocking my 90’s cd 💿 player . Denon 3520 The Beast! Btw, I’m on my 3rd external DAC 😂

Recently picked up a K-01x, and I'm feeding an Auralic Aries G1 streamer into it, I mostly listen to CDs. Albums on cd generally seem to sound a little better than the file versions on Tidal. Wondering which streamers might be able to provide a significant audible improvement.

Jay great RU-vid channel and how's does it compare to msb dac?

How does the N-01XD compare to the Playback Designs MPD-8 or DCS Rossini, as it relates to soundstage and tonality.

also the optical is needed to connect the TV to the unit to run Netflix movies and Sports through my system...

hello, are they great differences between the new N01XD SE ?

I’m sort of confused..not by you and your mission statement for we’re all grateful for your dedication to the art. My question is .. the CD community on Twitter ( now X) ..no one seems to have ANYTHING close to the level and dedication that you’ve been showing us. Now the Esoteric line is gorgeous..and delivers a great performance ..but that’s not even the TOTL in this hobby ….but no one has anything even at lower tiers of gear ⚙️. I’m absolutely amazed at where this TOTL digital art is going . Take care Jay. Thanks for tolerating my rant . I hope you’re making headway on the room remake .

Is better than Moon 780 D V2 ? It is approximately the same price level.

I have no issues with the display. It is simple LED display. I don't need to display the album art, it will probably last longer than a colour display.

how does the Esoteric K-01XD compare to a Denon SX1 dsd sacd/ DAC Limited ❓

I used to work selling Esoteric gear and the analytical 'house-sound' they often got tagged with was never wholly true. In fact all of their models were deliberately voiced slightly differently; hence I myself owned the analytical ultra-high paced X-03SE as well as the most analogue rich-sounding digital front end I've ever heard, the P-05/D-05 combo. I actually got an opportunity to ask one of the designers what their approach was and he told me that they used a lot of listening panels made up of members of the public, and the company's aim was to be able to offer one player that was ideally tailored for classical music aficionados and another that would suit dance music & J-Pop fans better, etc. Having heard the latest XD Dac (in a K-03XD) my feeling is they have better nailed the all-rounder thing now, leaning just a tiny bit to the warmer side tonally but now with a lot of accompanying drive too.

Jay, do you still have plans to bring the K1X/PS1 into the lab?

A few points. The DAC in N-01XD is a simplified circuit of the master sound discrete DAC found in the flagship D1X. It is not the same DAC as found in D1X. ES-LINK is a proprietary high bandwidth connection for Esoteric disk transports only. The display is 100% fit for purpose. Esoteric use a modern iteration of low noise electroluminescent display technology - it looks like the same display as in older Esoteric models but it's not. Esoteric keep the same aesthetic flowing through to new models as a design point. They do this for a reason. The owner of a legacy D1/P1 combo can upgrade to a D1X and keep the P1 as they look identical. Or you can upgrade from N-01 to N-01XD and they look identical. Esoteric are not going to put noisy touchscreens in their products, which is a good thing.

Would you be willing to test something like the bluesound Node x to see how it really sounds. Due to the caliber of your system, I think it would be interesting, and im looking in to buy it. Just a thought. Thank you for your content.

Hey Jay, have you ever heard a Berkeley Audio Ref Dac 3? It is in the Eso's price range.

hi jay thank you very much for this review, i will definitely buy it.. now i have a question. i have the esoteric k-03xd cd player and want to replace it for the k-01xd. does it sound just as good as the streamer or is the k-03xd cd player nicer?.organic. I would love to hear from you or from other users/followers.

Frequency range is not wide enough to make a good decay. Narrow frequency range make a good density of sound

Price of Magnepan 20.7s 😊 Separates for future advancements When is the Stromtank returning?

Our modified Lumin X1 does the same. People have no idea how important the internal DAC is inside a streamer. The 3D stage of the modified Lumin X1 is the biggest stage I ever auditioned. The same counts for the analog sound. Lumin is far superior in the sharpness of the individual focus of instruments and voices compared to any brand I auditioned for streaming. The menu of Esoteric streamers is bought from Lumin. Lumin is also better in diversity in the height of voices and instruments. When people learn what sound is, audio becomes a lot easier to understand. All the extremely expensive High-End DACs showed a shortcoming regarding the layering of sound. When you understand sound you will become aware of why a separate DAC has its limitations. The Rose is 2D and is a Hi-Fi streamer.

Jay, is there anything this DAC does better sonically than MSB Reference?

Will you try the Lampizator Horizon?

When you reviewing the Kassandra DAC?

When you test a streamer is the device hard wired to ethernet or wireless?

How did you connect the Taiko to Esoteric?

So if this is so super wher is the socket for headphones...ha

I guess there must be some reason they don't choose fancier display yet.

if the display was nicer, high-res with touch etc then the mystery of its sound quality would be gone. what i like is the huge expense and inconvenience. much better than a cheap wiim streamer with a perfect topping/smsl dac lol

Available used for 15K in audiogon

What happened to the MSB Select II?

So you can’t change filters to alter sound to your liking.

If you add a good external master clock, such as a one VAccoustics around 5k, it just goes one level beyond.

It's a great component ruined only by connecting it to the bad combo of Dartzeel + Boulder. Ughh. Get rid of the Dartzeel already.

N01xd vs Lumin P1

Where I live for 20k you can buy a house 😅

Your criticisms of the esoteric is entirely justified, and this is because esoteric does uses a more underperforming discrete ladder dac implementation. Also it has a some technical performance issues, and it definitely does not have the lowest noise floor, transparency detail and dynamics separation available. If you want ultimate natural transparency detail, dynamics, do not go and buy a discrete ladder dac streaming player, simple as that .

All Esoteric build like tank, that said they also sound like a Tank. Metallic sound.

Worth it? Is it sufficiently good, important, or interesting enough to justify the ridiculous ultra high price of admission? Not one bit.

Whatever performance doesn’t justify 20k for a digital device, above all if labeled Esoteric which hasn’t much to share with highend products

"Is this worth a great value?" short answer. Absolutely not. No offense, but anything with a price tag that large, is purely subjective. I GUARANTEE you wouldn't be able to pick a winner in a blind test of this VS a $5,000 DAC. Putting a DAC into a giant box will give the listener confidence in quality, but it's sooooo far into the realm of placebo it's not even funny. I can't believe people pay $20,000 to have a DAC basically be an EQ, but will be the same people who tell you EQ'ing is a huge no no. You even proved my point in this video alone. "its got that tube feel". classic

😁😁😁

Hey Jay, Please can you play José Padilla-Blues for Ibiza on your sound system.