CD/SACD-проигрыватели и транспорты — Esoteric K-01XD SE

The K-01XD SE is the updated SE edition of the K-01XD Super Audio CD player from Esoteric of Japan, the company's best-known digital player line. The XD edition combined two technologies first developed for the Grandioso K1X - the VRDS-ATLAS transport and the in-house Master Sound Discrete DAC. The SE version adds the Master Sound Discrete Clock for digital players, revised analogue circuitry on the DAC board and an updated version of the patented pinpoint feet.

Key specs that matter

The player reads Super Audio CD and CD, including CD-R and CD-RW. Analogue outputs are one XLR pair, which also carries ES-LINK Analog, delivering 5.0 Vrms from 114 ohm, and one RCA pair delivering 2.5 Vrms from 34 ohm. Measured from the XLR output with SACD, frequency response is 5 Hz to 70 kHz at -3 dB, signal to noise ratio is 113 dB A-weighted and distortion is 0.0007 % at 1 kHz. The USB B input accepts PCM from 44.1 to 384 kHz at up to 32-bit and DSD at 2.8, 5.6, 11.2 and 22.5 MHz, and the coaxial and optical ports cover PCM to 192 kHz and 24-bit plus DoP DSD at 2.8 MHz. Power consumption is 26 W, and the chassis measures 445 x 162 x 438 mm and weighs 31 kg.

Engineering and use context

The VRDS system presses the disc against a turntable of the same diameter, suppressing rotational vibration, correcting warp and lowering servo current. The ATLAS 01 version used here has a 20 mm SS400 steel bridge shared with the Grandioso models, a duralumin platter, a single point steel ball thrust bearing, and a motor moved below the turntable to shorten the grounding path. The mechanism sits on a 5 mm steel bottom plate supported by three pinpoint feet. Four toroidal transformers separately supply the left and right DAC channels, the transport and the digital circuits, and 71 super capacitors total 1,850,000 uF behind discrete low-feedback regulators. The DAC uses 32 elements per channel, driven by a proprietary 64-bit/512Fs delta-sigma modulator in an FPGA that handles DSD and PCM up to 768 kHz. The HCLD output buffer has a slew rate of 2,000 V/us, and a Grandioso Custom VCXO II clock holds ±0.5 ppm. PCM can be upsampled by 2, 4, 8 or 16 times or converted to DSD, and MQA-CD plus full MQA decoding are supported.

Pairing

Balanced cabling to an amplifier or preamp with XLR inputs uses the higher output level, and ES-LINK Analog current transmission can be used with compatible Esoteric amplification. A BNC input accepts a 10 MHz reference from the G-01X or G-02X master clock. Coaxial and AES/EBU outputs pass 44.1 kHz CD data to an external converter, while RS-232C and a 3.5 mm trigger allow system control.

Alternatives

The Esoteric K-03XD SE is the other VRDS-ATLAS SACD player in the K series, pairing the same transport type with the Master Sound Discrete DAC.