Esoteric . . . your thoughts please

Who perform the modification to the Wadia 521, and what was modified/changed, and with what perceivable audible differences? G.

I have been a proud and delighted owner of an Esoteric X-01 Limited for almost 4 years. There appears to be a sonic characteristic in common with most Esoteric players. . . discount anything they do be fore you have put about 1200 hours of break-in on them: the 1st 500 hours in particular, are akin to a hellish trip to the dentist without the benefit of novocain, but once these devices have reached their best, they show their true colors, and are incredibly musical on top of being resolution and staging champions. On the P-05/D-05 combo, Garebear can give you his direct comments, because he is an owner.

For what's worth, the X-01 Limited, and the newer incarnation X-01 D2 even more so, are said by Esoteric to exceed the performance of the 05 combo, but I have not been able to verify this claim by myself as I have not had the combo in my system.

The D-05 has just been released, and I have no information nor informal scuttlebut about its musical prowess one way or another.

Guido

"The D-05 has just been released. . ."

Oops, that was wrong. . . I meant to say that the D-07 has just been released, not the D-05. And of course, at this time, we have no information on the musical prowess of D-07.. . . Apologies for confusion. G.

Thank you Dennis, since then I have been experimenting with the Shunyata King Cobra CX. . . and I like it even more than the Helix Anaconda Alpha. The good news is that the new Shunyata CX series has completely abandoned the FeSi filtering material, so it has no trace of the old 'laquering' effect of the VX variants. Furthermore, I found that the King Cobra CX that I am trying right now on digital front ends and power products is much more dynamic than the Anaconda Helix Alpha, which while extremely refined in itself, suffered a little bit from over-polite transients and smoothened dynamics. King Cobra in my system appears to be a total generalist that has been happily applicable to every position I tried it on: X-01 Limited and other digital front ends, JRDG 312 power amp, and Furutech ETP-309 conditioner. Only on JRDG Criterion KC appears to have no appreciable effect. . . but no PC I tried this far seems to alter the performance of Criterion.

In my system at least, KC yields all the refinement of the older Helix Alpha series, but with even more transparency, staging, and much better dynamics. Unfortunately I have not yet tried Hydra or the newer Shunyata conditioners. Guido

I can also confirm that during a single 2 hour listening session in my system, Berkely Alpha DAC has slower somewhat thicker bass than my X-01 Limited. On the other hand, Alpha is somewhat sharper and less relaxed than X-01, with X-01 seeming also to yield a more defined stage. G.

Catastrofe, what do you use as a source/transport? G.

Congratulations Thefirstchorus! Keeps us posted on the evolution of its sound during break in. . . and be patient and steadfast with it. . . Esoteric gear does not make for easy instant gratification. . . but the end result is pretty glorious! G.