Confusion re Esoteric X-01 Limited and X-01D2

I have not compared the two in listening but think very highly of the D2 which I know well. I spoke with Neil at Esoteric tech support last week asking the same question about a comparison. His comment was that the D2 has better dacs and a better transport than the new P-05/D-05.FWIW.

First, the Esoteric units can be converted from, say, 110 to 230 volt-operation, probably not only from Esoteric technicians, but from other ones, too. Another issue, however, is that Esoteric services only units which have been bought in the respective country. So bringing over a unit from the US or Asia to Europe carries a high risk of not being able to service or upgrade the unit later.

As far as the X-01 D2 in comparison to the P-05/D-05 combination is concerned: I have not compared the two, but called the German Esoteric-headquarters. They told me they had just done this comparison and found the D2 to sound slightly superior to the combo, offering better defined bass and a little better soundstaging.
Regards,
Florian Hassel

Thanks for the replies. I did find online one short comparison piece (which appears to support the statements above regarding the superiority of the X-01D2) but unfortunately it's written in Japanese and the online translation tools make it hard to decipher.

I wonder if the differences between the D2 and P5D5 has more to do with the inferior transport versus the dacs? I personally believe the transports can have a huge impact on the sound. This is why I got the P3 transport instead of the P5 transport. It would be interesting to ask Teac if they have compared the P3D5 combo versus the D2. That being said, I would have probably got the D2 but I wanted to also use the DAC as an input for the digital music server.

Before I got my P3D5 I did own the X-03se which is of course several steps down from the D2. The P3 uses the same transport as the X03se. I found the P3D5 to be much better at separation than the X-03se. I also heard more detail.

Digital is always moving forward with better dac's/other components, enginering etc. I haven't really compared the new units to the older one's but I'm sure they sound better.
However I would like to note that the new versions of the VRDS transports are not as good as the one's they replace. In an effort to reduce manufacturing costs, the new units are made of cheaper components. The transports in the X-O1 and UX-1 are too expensive to manufacture and thus we have the new "improved" models. Despite that I still think they're the best on the market.