Esoteric n05 streamer and dac

@rohanraman - just sounded kind of flat, a little bright.  Perhaps it was the rest of my system cabling, etc.

To my ears and in my system it just didn’t excite me or make me want to listen to it for extended lengths of time.

I have never heard the Esoteric or the Sonica.  I do own Oppo 105 and 203, and I’ve been told that the Sonica essentially is a beefed up DAC from the 105.  When I ran the 105 into two other DACs, the Mytek Manhatten and the Bryston DAC3, the improvement was huge.  The Esoteric cost about seven times the Sonica so I expect that you will hear a major improvement.  Whether that will be the best use of the extra dollars is something that I can’t answer having as mentioned never heard the Esoteric, but the Esoteric never seems to be mentioned in Forums for DAC recommendations or DAC streamer combos in that price range.

What did you not like about the esoteric?

I owned the Esoteric N-05 and wasn't impressed.  would agree with the previous poster - Lumin, Aurender, and Auralic would be your best choice for the money.

I owned a Sonica and went to a Lumin T2....the improvement was remarkable....better dynamics, tone, sound staging, you name it. The Sonica is terrific for the money but has an uninvolving sound IMO and doesn't do Roon or Qobuz plus no more mfg.support. Sorry, I don't know the Esoteric nor did I ever consider it. Looked at Auralic, Aurender and Innuous before buying the Lumin.