Hi Phillyb,
I hope to persuade you to try out HRA with your K-03 in which you have invested a substantial sum. I am not a dealer but just another hobbyist who has simply discovered and experienced the joys of HRA.
As the cost of the K-03 comes with the usb input and hirez DAC, you would be missing out on a lot of its other capabilities, esp with HRA.
This little experiment will come at very little additional cost. First, get an audiophile grade usb cable-the Audioquest Pearl usb cable is a rather affordable point to start with. Then download the free HRA player, install it and then, go to the HD Tracks website to download their free samples of hirez files.
I am quite confident you will like what you hear compared to CD.
Cheers! |
Many thanks as usual, Guido.
I just downloaded the HRA player to my K-01 and the installation was a breeze. Upon installation, the upsampling option defaults to ORG (no upsampling) while the digital filter option defaults to OFF.
The improvement in sonics over my previous coax connection via the iFi iLink usb-spdif converter is significant in every parameter.
When I compared the default ORG and OFF to the other options, there was some degradation in SQ. So I went back to the default as Esoteric meant it to be for optimal SQ.
If one has a very high-end usb-spdif converter compared to my pedestrian iLink, your mileage would of course vary between the coax and usb connections. I have to qualify here that my usb connection from the pc is via the iFi iPower and double-headed Gemini cable which separates the usb power from the audio signal. I did compare with and without the iPower again after installation of the HRA Player and came away much happier with the iPower in the chain.
All K-01/03 owners who are into computer audio owe it to themselves to try out this free download.
Happy listening! |
This may be old news but what is of greater interest will be to hear the experience of anyone who has tried out this DSD upgrade. |
Guido,
+1 Mark's comments above. Yes, it would be interesting to compare redbook files via the HRA player to CD's spinning in the transport. I shall evaluate this and revert.
Mark,
The HRA player does not do native dsd for the K-01/03. While I did not download dsd files in the past, I can do so now to evaluate the DoP protocol. Would be interesting to compare dsd over pcm to hirez pcm for some music albums. |
Guido and all,
I have compared the redbook version of the same album to the CD spinning in the transport. I am delighted to say that it is no contest with sound from the transport way ahead by quite a mile. I am happy because the substantial investment in the VRDS Neo transport for redbook material remains sound and has not been rendered obsolete by the HRA player. :) |
Guido,
Looks like Mark has answered most of your questions. For me, I will continue to play redbook CD's in the transport and listen only to hi-rez via the HRA player.
Comparing hi-rez via HRA to redbook CD's in the transport, hi-rez is at a whole new level altogether.
Mark, one day you may decide to upgrade your Mac OS to Maverick and be able to take advantage of the HRA player. |
Mcduman,
If you use Google Chrome, it will translate any language into English on the fly. I have read the short intro to the x models, their improvements over non-x, and the modifications avaialable for non-x, but no full review yet.
Jon. |
Mark,
I am afraid I use Windows 8.1 for hi-rez audio and will not be able to compare what you hope for. Also, I would need Amarra and A+ for the experiment.
I appreciate your resolve in getting past the Mac Mini's "screw vaults", so to speak. Well, I am a mite meeker when it comes to this sort of thing although I would do it on an old discarded piece just to exercise my hands and fingers. Looks like coincidentally, you may be a microsurgeon too, with your surgical loupes, precision and attention to detail with regard to the screw types.
Cheers! |
Dear all,
I called up my local Marantz dealer earlier today to find out about the new network player NA8005. Lo and behold, they have it in the store on passive display. So I trundled down to the store and brought it home. At $1199 retail, it was worth a calculated risk since the first network player, the NA11S was well received by JA. The NA8005 piqued my interest for 2 primary reasons - one, it could play dsd and hirez pcm files from a USB memory stick, and two, it has a coax digital output.
Once unpacked, set-up was a breeze for my primary objective of playing hirez files from a USB flash drive. So, no more computer and usb cables. It was simply connecting the 8005 to the K-01 coax input.
Fresh out of the box(I don't know if a network player would benefit from break-in), the sound emanating from the usb memory stick jacked into the front panel input, was in a word, glorious. If I was previously happy with hi-rez via the Esoteric's HRA player, I must say I am completely floored by what I heard in the first few minutes. It was incredible! I had this sudden epiphany of what hi-rez is all about. So, this is indeed how hi-rez should really sound. It is truly that jaw-dropping. All I can say is that with usb flash memory as source, coupled to the K-01's DAC section, there is detail and detail, and yet, oh so smooth and smooth. Not only that, the soundstage opened up while notes floated effortlessly beyond the speaker boundaries in width, depth and height. Bass is prodigious without being boomy, while highs are airier and more extended. As for the midrange, it's either "you are there" or "she is in your living room" sort of thing. Transient attacks are as impactful as they should be. Finally, it all has to be musical and indeed it is as musical as it gets - the total antithesis of "analytical". The 8005 is also not partial to any genre, serving out classical, jazz, blues or rock in equal measure. As the old cliché goes, it doesn't get any better than this. There is not an iota of dryness that might have been suggested of the K-01 in the past.
To all K-01/03 owners, do go out and bring an NA8005 home for an audition or, like me, just buy it. You can finally bid goodbye to jitter-inducing computer interfaces, hard disk drives, background noise, etc, etc.
Happy listening! |
Hi Tboooe,
Thanks for your kind comments.
For my minimalst set-up, no computer or software interface is needed. The player just reads off the data from the flash drive and the artist, album, track, file type and sampling rate info are all shown on the display.
I do not intend to use the network function either as this would entail the use of a computer with usb and ethernet cabling to the home broadband router. Any of this along the signal path introduces jitter to some degree. |
Guido,
I am using the Sandisk Cruzer with 128 GB on board. It is a high speed 2.0 usb thumb drive. I think these are easily available nowadays. |
Only usb drives formatted as FAT16 or FAT32 is supported. Unfortunately, NTFS formatted SSD drives cannot be played by the 8005. |
Just to add, if you want to play from your large SSD drive via your computer, you need to use the internal dac. All computer usb connections need to go through the internal dac and then via analog outputs to the preamp.
To connect directly to your own dac, only usb flash drives plugged into the front or rear panel ports allow digital output.
Another very big plus in ditching the computer is the handheld remote that allows you to scroll through all your music folders and files instead of having to get off the chair and use the mouse to open them. Of course you can use the app on your smartphone or tablet to control the player but then you need a wireless connection to your computer for this. The purist way for pc audio would be to turn off all wireless connections during playback. |
Guido,
That day will surely come and I will patiently wait with you for it.
Meanwhile, the NA8005 is doing very nicely right now for me.
What flabbergasts me is that a product like this that costs about 1% of the total system cost can elevate sound quality by one third! Kudos to the march of technology. In this case, it is indeed the law of diminishing returns in reverse! - the new law of accelerating returns. |
Try uninstalling the driver, reboot your pc/Mac and do a fresh reinstall from the website.
Hope this works. |
One thing that is very important. You need to do the fresh reinstall on your computer without a usb connection to the K-03. Connect the usb cable from your computer to the K-03 only AFTER the driver installation is completed. |
Hi Jeffkad,
Apologies for my delayed reply - just read your post.
1. What kind of PC do you use? -
I have stopped using my PC as a source. The hi-res files are transfered to a usb flash drive which is then plugged into the Marantz front panel port
2. How do you download music? -
I download from various websites to my PC and then transfer them to a usb flash drive
3. Do you burn discs into your PC? - No; I only play hi-res files through the Marantz; redbook still sounds better via my K-01 transport
4. Does your new method of copying music to USB flash drive render the quality of the original PC used to copy/store music immaterial to SQ? - Yes, definitely, because the PC isn't in the chain anymore. :)
Hope this helps. Cheers!
Jon |
Looks like we should not download and install any driver for now. |
