Esoteric K-01 vs dCS Puccini

Classicjazz..

I owned the DCS Scarlatti 3 box stack and although it did dig a bit deeper than the MPS-5 on SACD, I still found it a bit harsh up the top end. The MPS-5 sounded more musical on Redbook playback to my liking plus I got away with so many expensive cables.

A friend owns the Emm Labs XDS1 and I have to say that it's a great sounding player and there's not much in it between the two just system synergy. I would happily keep mine or buy the XDS1.
BTW, my friend with the XDS1 owned the esoteric 5 box stack P-01, D-01 and rubduim clock and to our eyes, it was no where close to the Emm's.

Did the Scarlatti owner have the Upsampler, or the Word Clock as part of his 3 box stack? The Upsampler allows you to upsample to 176, which I have always preferred to DSD. The Word Clock makes an incredible improvement; without it the Scarlatti is just another good CD/SACD player. If you can spend that kind of money, you should go for the full monti.

I own both of the great players - Esoteric K-01 & dCS Puccini. I would say they both are very analytical, but K-01 is more analytical. It also gives a bigger soundstage and ultra dark background.

K-01 is a better pick for classical music because it is lack of coloring.

For Puccini, it is more musical. I would say it is a all-rounded player.

At this price level, both players offer exceptional quality, so it is a tough call to pick one!

do you use the Puccini with clock ?

I personally own the Puccini & clock

a close friend owns the K-01

but I can't tell nothing serious because our systems are so different
the only thing I can tell, I prefer the k-01 to the 03 combo which he had on demo in his system ... the k-01 seems more musical than the 03 which could sometime sound a little bit harsch

Clavude, one interesting observation I made at RMAF, is that K-01 was very sensitive to the G-03 external clock.... while the old K-01 series seemed to me largely insensitive to external clocking. G.