Joey,
I'm 100% computer-based front end. Super optimized. Excellent DAC and all that, but I always liked Esoteric a lot. I would encourage you to re-think the USB input in an Esoteric as a great feature. In my book it is not really worth much. Hold your flames! ;-)
The Esoterics are pieces for the long-term. You might never buy a spinner again, as someone said. And if you like the DAC presentation, you are likely not going to get an analog section like that in any of the PC-focused DACs. But computer audio is changing very rapidly. Now everybody is talking about DSD, even 4xDSD. 2 years ago you hardly heard about it and the rave was about 24/192 PCM, which in turn were hardly heard of 4 years ago...and I doubt this is going to change anytime soon.
So I would suggest you consider using a very good USB-to-SPDIF converter that can be upgraded as technology evolves, and you just hook it up to your D03 or X03, or whatever you end up getting. I have an Audiophilleo with PurePower that was one of the best 2 years ago and it was $1k. Should it become outdated it would be relatively inexpensive to replace (relative to the price of the DAC).
Cheers!
I'm 100% computer-based front end. Super optimized. Excellent DAC and all that, but I always liked Esoteric a lot. I would encourage you to re-think the USB input in an Esoteric as a great feature. In my book it is not really worth much. Hold your flames! ;-)
The Esoterics are pieces for the long-term. You might never buy a spinner again, as someone said. And if you like the DAC presentation, you are likely not going to get an analog section like that in any of the PC-focused DACs. But computer audio is changing very rapidly. Now everybody is talking about DSD, even 4xDSD. 2 years ago you hardly heard about it and the rave was about 24/192 PCM, which in turn were hardly heard of 4 years ago...and I doubt this is going to change anytime soon.
So I would suggest you consider using a very good USB-to-SPDIF converter that can be upgraded as technology evolves, and you just hook it up to your D03 or X03, or whatever you end up getting. I have an Audiophilleo with PurePower that was one of the best 2 years ago and it was $1k. Should it become outdated it would be relatively inexpensive to replace (relative to the price of the DAC).
Cheers!