Esoteric K 03 CD/ SACD player. Exc!

Just taken on trade. The classic Esoteric K03 sacd player. Incredibly well made and sonically amazing! One of the finest CD players ever made. 62 pounds! This unit is almost perfect. I would say Mint-. It plays perfectly and has its original box, manual and remote. Please note I despise paypal so I prefer zelle, venmo or worst case PP friends and family.

The K-03 includes Esoteric’s new VRDS-NEO VMK-3.5-10 disc transport, which, the company states, performs substantially better than earlier VRDS models. This transport, which by itself weighs almost ten pounds, incorporates a new driver circuit for precision servo control, a duralumin turntable with “micron-level accuracy,” and a 10mm, solid-steel turntable bridge. Other features include a coreless, three-phase, brushless-spindle motor driven by strong neodymium magnets; a thread feed control; and a shaft-sliding type pickup, by which the laser beam can more consistently read the disc. 

The K-03 has four 32-bit, AK4399 monaural DACs per channel (the K-01 has an incredible eight per channel), sourced from Asahi Kasei Microdevices. Each DAC is mounted on a dedicated analog board and configured for dual-mono operation, with the same layout for each of the K-03’s two channels. 

Power is supplied courtesy two proprietary, large-capacity toroidal transformers. One of these transformers is used to power the DACs and the fully balanced analog circuits, the other to power the digital circuit and transport mechanism. 

As in the more expensive K-01, the K-03 has discrete buffered analog output circuits with high-voltage (±22V) power supplies. These are symmetrically laid out for each of the hot and cold signal lines, for use with XLR connections. The output circuits are switched to parallel configuration for use with RCA connections. 

Inside the K-03’s silvery case is a two-level chassis with five compartments, one for each circuit block, to minimize cross-contamination. At the center is the compartment housing the transport mechanism, which is attached directly to the 5mm-thick steel bottom plate and is supported by three patented, resonant-suppressing feet. 

Two separate audio boards, one for each channel, are mounted near the rear portion of the upper level, close to the rear output terminals. The power circuits and transformers are isolated from the audio board by an internal steel plate, and hang down from the bottom of the board. According to Esoteric, these design features provide for extremely short signal and power paths, thus minimizing the transfer of electromagnetic interference and resonance. 

Esoteric also says that the K-03’s onboard word clock is substantially advanced over past designs: The clock uses a voltage-controlled crystal oscillator (VCXO) with an accuracy of ±0.5 parts per million (ppm); a stabilized power-supply circuit improves the stability of the clock’s operation; and the clock sync signal is directly delivered to the DACs without passing through the phase-locked loop circuit. According to Esoteric, all of this substantially reduces audible jitter. 

For improved performance, the K-03 can be used with an external word clock such as Esoteric’s own G-03X ($5000) or G-0Rb ($20,000). But the company claims that the K-03’s own clock is so good that switching from its ±0.5ppm to the G-03X’s ±0.1ppm will yield only a modest improvement in sound quality. For a serious sonic improvement, Esoteric advises moving up to the G-0Rb, whose rubidium generator, they claim, is accurate to ±0.05 parts per billion. 

The K-03 has a variety of digital-to-digital conversion functions. These include a mode for upsampling PCM digital to two (88.2 or 96kHz) or four times (176.4 or 192kHz) its original sample rate. The K-03 even upsamples PCM to DSD resolution, which is 2.8224MHz, or 64x the sampling rate of 44.1kHz. 

The K-03 has four types of 32-bit digital filters that provide 8x oversampling for PCM but do not alter SACD’s native bitstream. These consist of two proprietary Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filters, FIR1 and FIR2, and two short-delay filters, S_DLY1 and S_DLY2, all of which can be defeated. The FIR filters are essentially traditional rolloff filters aimed at reducing high-frequency noise. The short-delay filters, which are often called apodizing filters, seek to eliminate pre-echo and ringing effects in the impulse waveform and thus provide sound that is free from digital artifacts. The cutoff frequencies of the FIR1 and S_DLY1 filters vary according to the input sampling frequency; the cutoff frequency of the FIR2 and S_DLY2 filters is about 80kHz. 

For computer audio, the K-03 supports sampling-rate sources of up to 24/192. Of its three transmission modes, one is a standard or normal mode that accepts up to 24/96, and two are high-speed modes -- one adaptive, one asynchronous -- that accept up to 24/192. Each mode is compatible with Apple and Windows operating systems. Also, like PCM, digital music files can be filtered in a variety of ways and/or upsampled to 24/192. There is also a proprietary USB isolator that separates the power and signal paths from the USB input system. According to Esoteric, this protects against electrical interference from noisy external devices such as personal computers. 

Such a level of functionality would seem to be plenty. However, capitalizing on its eight 32-bit DACs, the K-03 also has a 32-bit digital attenuator that permits it to be directly attached to a power amplifier. According to Esoteric, the extra headroom of eight bits over the standard 24 allows for very precise volume control with no reduction of resolution. The gain of the XLR outputs can be adjusted from 0 to 6dB, to accommodate the input sensitivity of the connected amplifier. 

The K-03 comes with an impressively heavy, aluminum-bodied remote control that’s finished in leather on the bottom and sides. In addition to all of the usual source-specific controls, the remote has buttons for volume control and input selection. 

Esoteric specifies the K-03’s analog output as: frequency response, 5Hz-55kHz, -3dB; signal/noise ratio, 115dB; total harmonic distortion, 0.0015% at 1kHz. The K-03 weighs 61.8 pounds and measures 17 1/4"W x 6 3/8"H x 13 1/4"D.