ESOTERIC Grandioso P1X

To create a moving, once-in-a-lifetime connection between music and a listener, the vitality of the music needs to be conveyed in its purest form, without stress. That is the ultimate mission of top-quality audio. ESOTERIC’ s P1 and D1 digital source systems combine remarkable new technologies such as ES-LINK4 and 36-bit D/A processing. It’ s easy to see why these new flagship models are called Grandioso, Italian for “magnificent” or “majestic” .
ESOTERIC has developed an original, state-of-the -art transmission format called ES-LINK4, which allows DSD and 352.8kHz/48bit PCM ultrawideband digital transmission using an HDMI cable. ES-LINK4 performs a large part of the digital signal processing on the sending side, greatly reducing the digital signal processing load on the D/A converter. In addition to ultra-wide bandwidth, we sought high sound quality through our “Pure D/A” concept, in which the D/A converter specializes in its original function of D/A conversion processing.
The D1 applies a 36-bit D/A processing algorithm that converts PCM signals to analog signals at a high resolution of 36 bits by combining several 32-bit DAC devices. The tone of the high-bit data is used for faithful analog conversion. The resolution of 32-bit encoding is 256 times higher than that of 24-bit encoding, and 36-bit encoding gives an amazing resolution level that is another 16 times higher – a total of 4,096 times higher than the resolution of 24-bit encoding. Producing even finer bit tones minimizes operational error for outstanding expression of even subtle music signals.
The clock circuit, which supplies highly accurate reference clock signals to a digital circuit, can be considered the core unit of a digital player. The clock circuit of the P1 and D1 is completely independent of other circuits, including its power source and ground, enabling pure clock signals to be supplied to the system. The voltage controlled crystal oscillator (VCXO) was developed especially for the P1 and D1 in a joint effort with Nihon Dempa Kogyo (NDK), a major manufacturer of crystal oscillators. For a high-precision custom clock device worthy of leading models, high sound quality playback is provided thanks to an extremely low level of phase noise and a crystal element that is even larger than before.