Esoteric P-10

bikerboy

I have been looking for a transport to replace the modded toshiba 3950 I have been using for the past year or so. I got a Philips CD-880 from pmlewis and it works great. The thing weighs 25 lbs I bet! But I cant say I am in love with the sound it makes with the Twisted Pear Audio Buffalo dac. I think I will do a Lampizator NOS mod on the Philips and make it grow tubes someday. I found an old Esoteric P-10 transport and its on the way this week. I hope it will play nice with the system and make cds sound great. I think it will work well from what I have read. I'll let you know this saturday.

bikerboy

I was hoping the P-10 would be here saturday but I guess Fed Ex didnt hire boats to go up I-5. The weather in the NW has been heavy this year. Maybe it will be here this week. Oh well.

AndyGwis

pics? I've seen some Esoteric Universal players on Agon from time to time and always wanted to give em a try. Post some pics when you get it and how you like the sound!

madmax

Its going to suck if you can't find something that sounds better than the 3950.
madmax

bikerboy

Hi,
Well the P-10 has problems. It wouldnt open at first and finally got it to play a disc. The optical out causes the dac to lock and unlock constantly. The coax works but it seems like it needs to warm up before it will work properly. It doesnt play the cdr of Nick Cave. I emailed the seller. I dont know if its worth dealing with. It sounds soooooo much better than the Philips CD-880 or the Toshiba 3950 that its not funny. It is so easy to listen to and the bass is so much better it sounds like I got new speakers. The champagne finish goes well with the TAD-150 Sig pre amp. This thing weighs 22 lbs! Any cd I use now is just a transport going through the Twisted Pear Audio Buffalo DAC. Just proves the point of the source and the speakers are the most important in the system. As usual I try to be cheap and it bites me in the ****. I probably will send it back. But I am still interested in the Theta (MM). Pics tonight.

bikerboy

Hi,
I have been using the P-10 for a couple of days and all seems well now. I found if the optical cable is near the power cord it causes it to cut in and out. I have left it on all the time and it has played all the cds and cdrs except the Nick Cave cdr. It has a dent in the right side hence the $200 plus shipping I paid for it. I think the seller sold it to someone else and it was damaged in shipping then. He didnt pack it well considering it is a 22 lb. unit. It was in bubble wrap and popcorn when i received it. So I guess I was lucky it didnt get another dent before it got to me. It sounds real good, maybe not the best thing in the world, but it does sound great. I try to keep the upgrades in the 3 digit price range so it is limiting. So I think I will keep it if it keeps working for the next week. Heres a couple of pics. Guts later.

bikerboy

Hi,
I have been using the P-10 for the last week and it doesnt like to be turned off. If I power it down for the night and power up to use it the next day it takes about 15 min before it will quit sputtering and clicking. After about an hour it is good. It sounds ok, a little bright but great bass and mid bass. It uses the VRDS system with all aluminum parts and a sony kss-151a lazer. The drawer is a composite of some sort. The feet are sold metal and weigh a ton. I still need to talk to the seller and figure out what will happen as he said it works great! Heres some pics of the insides.

bikerboy

Hi,
I decided to keep the P-10. It still will not work properly if you shut it off. So I leave it on all the time. It plays all discs except for a couple of cdrs. It makes my sda-2 speakers sound like they are 10 times bigger. The lower range of sounds it makes are so solid and dynamic that I cant believe it is the same set of speakers I bought when I first started lurking around here. I have done a couple of things to the system at once so I cant give the P-10 all the credit. I also installed a Canare 75 ohm rca connector on the input of the TPA dac. It replaced the regular rca jack on the back. And I replaced all the caps and resistors on the power supply of the JoLida amp. The amp mods only have about 6 hours on them. So I have to say that this system sounds great. The cymbals are back near the kick drum in the center, the guitars are on the sides and vocals are in the center if thats where they need to be. Before the cymbals where out front and in your face too often. It still sounds good at low volumes or high. The detail of the lower vocals and bass guitars is almost a growl sometimes. I cant wait for the amp to settle and then I will roll some tubes. I also got a great pair of tubes from ND-13 and some DH labs T-14 silver speaker wire from Dave. Thanks guys. So happy new year and this system is sounding sweet.

bikerboy

Its been a couple of months with the Esoteric and I really like the way it sounds. It does have a problem were it makes a snapping sound after the start of a song sometimes. It almost sounds like a static discharge. Probably a bad cap. Someday I will have to look into it. But for now I am going to live with it. Since getting the Esoteric I got a set of MIT Terminator 2 speaker wires. Thanks Daboyz. They have made a huge difference in the sound of the system. Tamed the bright top end, improved the bass, increased the micro detail so much its hard to believe its the same speakers. So with the new power supply parts in the amp, the esoteric transport, and the MIT cables I am very happy with the sound out of these old sda-2 speakers. But after reading DarqueKnight's post on using mortite and weather stripping to dampen the drivers in the sdas I had to do that also. That took about 1 1/2 hours and was well worth the effort. Cleaned up a ringing in the midrange that has been an irritation since I got the speakers. Many thanks to DarqueKnight for his many informative posts . A must read when ever he posts on the forum. So I am a very happy camper with the setup I have now. Very musical, easy to listen to , detailed, great bass and full rich midbass. I'm sure it could be better but for now I am just listening. I dont want to unhook anything to try to fix it. It doesnt need fixing. I just hope the Esoteric doesnt die soon. I think it will be expensive to replace it.