Digital

I have a dCS Network Bridge feeding into an Esoteric K-05XD SACD Player.

Despite being the entry level model from Japanese maestros Esoteric, for all intents and purposes in the real world it is a reference class machine. It’s built like a tank. 21kgs of solid engineering. Certainly good enough for me. I like that fact it is an SACD player as well. I have some cool Dead Can Dance SACDs I have been wanting to hear for years, and now I finally can, and they sound spectacular! One of the best things has been the simplification of things. Fewer boxes, and a trend towards minimalism. I’ll probably run an optical cable from my tv to this as well to enjoy TV and movie sound through the main system. It’s a superb sounding machine for sure, lots of detail and a massively expansive soundstage.

Lots has been written about the quality and engineering of the Esoteric transports over the years, here’s a review from Fidelity Magazine and another from What Hifi of all places.

The remote is noteworthy in that is two sided, which I haven’t seen implemented this well before. Pretty cool.

I have it sitting on an Acoustic Revive RST-38 isolation platform which uses quartz and hickory wood to effect some sort of isolation. Apparently spurious vibration is converted to heat by the quartz. Looks cool and doesn’t seem to hurt the sound so it will stay.

The dCS Network Bridge is like a digital Swiss Army knife, it will stream from all the useful services out there, and will downsample the stream to suit whichever dac you’re using. dCS sadly discontinued the Bridge, citing difficulty in obtaining parts and materials costs skyrocketing. I will count myself lucky I got one. It is connected to the Esoteric with a Supra Excalibur Rhodium digital interconnect.

I’m not concerned about high res streaming, or anything like that. The range of music available is so limited that it has no actual real significance to me. I used to use a music server, but it was overly complicated and a pain to use, so have decided that Apple Music, and primarily of course CDs and SACDs, are perfectly adequate for my digital needs.

I was also using Tidal, and it is fine as a digital source, I just didn’t want to pay for two subscription streaming services. Who knows, I may revisit that in the future, however I am genuinely surprised at the quality of sound I get from Apple Music through the dCS and Esoteric set up. It’s actually really good.

I have decided there is something nice about playing actual discs as well, whether it is ‘better’ or not, I don’t care. There’s something vaguely nostalgic about it, and the Esoteric lets me indulge.