Revised last year in a new SE version, with a Master Sound Discrete DAC redesigned from scratch based on two FPGA chips implemented in dual mono, the K-01XD SE & K-03XD SE CD/SACD players are appearing at the end of this year in a “Black Edition” version limited to 50 units each.
While black versions have always been available occasionally from Esoteric, the Japanese brand has long justified these models with an anniversary, such as a decade to celebrate. More recently, the 05 series, which includes the N-05XD preamplifier-streamer and the K-05XD, has become available in gray or silver as standard, without extending this option to the 03 and 01 series models.
At the end of this year, the K-01XD SE and K-03XD SE are available in black, but in a limited edition. The main reason given by the brand’s teams is that some Americans with McIntosh or Mark Levinson systems would prefer a CD/SACD player with Esoteric’s VRDS-ATLAS mechanism, but are reluctant to invest because they don’t want to spoil their black system with a silver component.
The idea may seem secondary, but this very limited edition will delight users and collectors alike with both sound and image quality. Because while an Esoteric may lose a little of its personality in black, inside, nothing has changed. Both devices maintain some of the most reliable and accurate transport mechanisms on the market (even better on the K-01XD SE with the ATLAS 01, which is 20 mm thick compared to 18 mm on the ATLAS 03). The capacitors still achieve a filtering capacity worthy of the largest mono amplifier blocks, with 26 double-layer super capacitors with a total capacitance of 650,000μF on the K-03XD SE, and almost triple that on the second (71 EDLC; 1,850,000μF)!
Preferably used with their XLR analog outputs, given the perfectly symmetrical structure of the two CD/SACD players, they also have a pair of RCA outputs and two digital outputs, in addition to offering four digital inputs to directly integrate the DAC, notably via a network transport.
With a difference of only a few thousand yen in Japan, the prices of these Black Edition models should remain fairly similar to those of the classic silver versions in Europe, i.e. close to 20 000 € for the K-03XD SE and 29 000 € for the K-01XD SE.
19/11/2025
