Built for the love of music.....

[Charles]

Originally Posted by SCAudiophile

Then last night unpacked, set up, cabled up and fired up! Is producing the single best rendition of any disc I throw in that I've ever heard here or elsewhere....extremely happy with the synergy and magnitude of these last upgrades.




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Mark, this pic and Esoteric gear are amazing/stunning/incredible. If I could hear just one system, it would be yours. I know you must really like your sound. Folks like you upgrade not out of dissatisfaction but a desire for ever better sonics. This is some of the most real life incredible gear I have seen. Truly beautiful. Could you enumerate what is what in the pic for this old man?

Best

Charles

p.s. the reason I say this is that it is so unique with the topline Legacy and the superb Esoteric gear which has to be among the ultimate ultra high end gear. I can't think of a more unique high end system.

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by Charles

Mark, this pic and Esoteric gear are amazing/stunning/incredible. If I could hear just one system, it would be yours. I know you must really like your sound. Folks like you upgrade not out of dissatisfaction but a desire for ever better sonics. This is some of the most real life incredible gear I have seen. Truly beautiful. Could you enumerate what is what in the pic for this old man?

Best

Charles

p.s. the reason I say this is that it is so unique with the topline Legacy and the superb Esoteric gear which has to be among the ultimate ultra high end gear. I can't think of a more unique high end system.

Thank you VERY much Charles, I appreciate all that very much!

In the middle of a work day and will answer the questions as far as "Who's on First..." and so on later this evening.

[SCAudiophile]

Charles,...please see the text below the photos and I hope these will answer your questions.

MLW-JAN2022-NewSystemViews-FrontEnd-Components1-20211230_193023 copy.jpg

LEFT RACK (from top to bottom):

1. Esoteric Grandioso P1 Transport: CD, XRCD, K2HD, SACD platform. Is powered by 2 separate umbilicals from a fully external power component with multiple internal isolated power supplies. See below for notes on the Grandioso P1 Power Unit.

See below for notes on connection options out of the P1 and into the D1 DACs...

Net net: best to use dual-HDMI from the P1 to the D1 units and get upsampling by the transport of PCM to 8X and native / pure DSD (no upsampling) done by the transport. You could come out dual-AES from an Esoteric transport into the D1s,...see notes below.

2. Esoteric Grandioso D1 Monoblock DAC: (Left Channel unit) a full component dedicated to a single channel, 16 AKM 4495S DAC chips for a single channel. Is connected to the P1 Left channel proprietary digital output via "ES-LINK", Esoteric's proprietary use of an HDMI cable conduit throwing out the (non-audio friendly) HDMI spec and simply using the cable for its incredible band-pass and conductor count.

Note that you can connect into this using dual-AES from an Esoteric transport as explained above however dual-HDMI gets you the newest upgraded ES-LINK4 support according to Japan Engineers (and my ears so far), despite the fact you have no choice of upsampling (it's always 8X for PCM and straight DSD for SACD) and there is only 1 choice of filter (FIR or OFF), it conveys the best musical and sonic result.

When coming in into the D1 monobloc DAC from an older Esoteric transport that allows digital outputs, you can come in via single AES, dual AES or other digital connections. Same for any non-Esoteric transport source (single AES only though) that allows AES or other digital output.

When you do come into the Left-channel designated D1 via AES or other digital input, you have the ability to choose upsampling (1X or none, 4X, 8X or to->DSD) for PCM material. Note this is the same for any server and streamer using D1s and mighty power DACs.

As the source connects into the Left channel designated D1 only, the D1 is the master unit and is configured as such; it is connected to the 2nd D1 unit (the slave if you will) designated as Right-channel via an HDMI cable. The Left-ch D1 splits out the right channel audio info and sends it over HDMI to the Righ-ch for processing along with instructions as to the settings that are determined by the master (Left-ch) config.

3. On the bottom shelf is the dedicated power supply for the Esoteric P1 Transport. I believe they list it as the "Grandioso P1 Power Unit". As mentioned above all power supplies (5 I believe) for the P1 are kept out of the transport entirely as there are two (12 pin DC Umbilicals) carrying pure power to feed each isolated (left and right) channel side of the P1's output as well as its transport mechanism and also control circuitry, all via isolated DC feeds. Getting the power supplies out of the transport allows an obsessive level of focus on the highly specialized build and resultant performance of the P1.

MIDDLE RACK (top to bottom):

1. Esoteric Grandioso D1 Monoblock DAC (all notes above apply)

2. Cybershaft OP21A (Type2 curated OCXO assembly) Premium Limited v2 custom-designed 3-output 10 MHz master clock. I won't delve extensively into the use of and benefits of an external master clock as that's been covered in great detail elsewhere. I will say that this particular clock has been with me for a few years and is one that I assisted in the definition and design of with Kenji Hasegawa's immense knowledge brought to bear from Cybershaft. There were quite a few things we did inside this unit that were unique at the time and it still equals or betters on the test bench as the Japan National Standards Institutes the best clocks today from Cybershaft, Sforzato, Esoteric (G1 and G1X), etc... The ideas and design/build and materials principles in this clock that I bought served as the ideas now incorporated into the more recent Cybershaft offerings out there today.

FAR RIGHT (mostly out of photo):
*waiting for a new AV45CS2 2-level rack from Adona to arrive as I had to claim those rack levels for the the new 5-box digital front-end where previously had been a 3-box...

1. Shunyata TYPHON QR

2. Shunyata TRITON V3 (using full chassis ground plane as well)

(no details on Shunyata units, plenty written here and elsewhere)

Hope this helps and I have not confused the issue...

[Levitator]

Outstanding system Mark!

[bart]

Quite the explanation Mark!

We all find this normal, but if people from outside of the hobby heard us, they'd probably think we're a tiny little bit obsessed.

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by bart

Quite the explanation Mark!

We all find this normal, but if people from outside of the hobby heard us, they'd probably think we're a tiny little bit obsessed.

Thank you Bart!

So true,....I solve the problem however as I now ignore them

[SCAudiophile]

Charles,...I did not break down the photo of the gear between the speakers however the nice rather large and juicy looking silver box there is the Esoteric C-02X preamp which is showing itself to be absolutely incredible. It is very much as marketed, to have the benefit of a lot of trickle down ideas and components from the Grandioso C1 preamp.

One additional thought on the P1 and D1 stack outline. This was Esoteric's all out assault as of 3-6 years ago. In Spring 2019, they brought out the Grandioso P1X and D1X. The differences are further a bit of enhancement in the ES-LINK protocols (taking them what is loosely referred to as ES-LINK5 but still dual-HDMI), an up-level of their prior transport now called VRDS ATLAS and their moving past the AKM 4495S DACs that I still favor on to their own in-house FPGA-enabled DACs which are in a word fantastic.

As I was telling a good friend who has the good fortune to own the P1X and the D1X, we are like a couple guys who own (insert high-end performance car name here) from 2 different model years. Jokingly I told him he got the Ferrari in red and I got the black one that came out a few years before. The essential point being.....they are both still FERRARIs :-)

Two different generations of all out assault; both get you to musical nirvana.

Besides,...with the advantage of Elrod Master Series power cords, Cybershaft clock and Shunyata Omega digital cables, etc, I am not hearing one thing different, missing or "less than" here now than I heard out of the P1X and D1X stack eluded to above that I heard twice in the last 8 months when I visited that friend, so I'm am very content.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by SCAudiophile

Charles,...I did not break down the photo of the gear between the speakers however the nice rather large and juicy looking silver box there is the Esoteric C-02X preamp which is showing itself to be absolutely incredible. It is very much as marketed, to have the benefit of a lot of trickle down ideas and components from the Grandioso C1 preamp.

One additional thought on the P1 and D1 stack outline. This was Esoteric's all out assault as of 3-6 years ago. In Spring 2019, they brought out the Grandioso P1X and D1X. The differences are further a bit of enhancement in the ES-LINK protocols (taking them what is loosely referred to as ES-LINK5 but still dual-HDMI), an up-level of their prior transport now called VRDS ATLAS and their moving past the AKM 4495S DACs that I still favor on to their own in-house FPGA-enabled DACs which are in a word fantastic.

As I was telling a good friend who has the good fortune to own the P1X and the D1X, we are like a couple guys who own (insert high-end performance car name here) from 2 different model years. Jokingly I told him he got the Ferrari in red and I got the black one that came out a few years before. The essential point being.....they are both still FERRARIs :-)

Two different generations of all out assault; both get you to musical nirvana.

Besides,...with the advantage of Elrod Master Series power cords, Cybershaft clock and Shunyata Omega digital cables, etc, I am not hearing one thing different, missing or "less than" here now than I heard out of the P1X and D1X stack eluded to above that I heard twice in the last 8 months when I visited that friend, so I'm am very content.

Mark, thank you for the time this took. It is obvious you "know" Esoteric so you understand how to obtain the best sound for the least amount of money. Your Esoteric is incredible and simply elegant. You know when and what to upgrade; you understand how and when to do it. Your Legacy gear is similar. I like your ability to upgrade it a lot, and again you understand when one is needed and how to do it when one is required.

As you know, tone controls, equalizers, and room correction, I don't like. Your system is so unique because it is the ultimate room corrected equalized custom package matched to the absolute best digital gear available. I like this a whole lot.

For example, some think Mac lacks detail. But put it with solid silver cables (AQ WEL Signature) and an XVX and they might think differently. I am sure I would think differently about room correction and equalization if I heard your system. It is the antithesis of mine but probably sounds better. I use a totally different approach, and this is what attracts me so much to your gorgeous beautiful system.

Best

Charles

[SCAudiophile]

Charles, you are welcome and thanks for the kind words! With Legacy Wavelet I can engage some, all or none of the features and just pass through as a crossover on a track by track basis or use it for all it provides. As a matter of fact, setup starts with proper positioning of the speaker as you would any speaker, all Wavelet features disabled; the better you do it, the more Wavelet can focus on providing that solution, not first correcting bad speaker positioning. It does both but frankly getting speaker position right as if for a passive speaker yields best optimized results.

Have a great day and enjoy that beautiful system of yours!

[SCAudiophile]

Updated pictures of the front of the room with new Esoteric C-02X preamp, new Legacy Wavelet II and the VALOR speakers and i.V4 Ultra amps...

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