Thread: ES Link cables for Esoteric transport

I recently got a P-05x transport to go with my N-01XD streaming DAC. Using the two stock ES-Link cables to hook them up together, two of them. They appear to be good quality cables, from van den Hul. The issue is the one that came with N-01xd is 1.5 Meter, and the one that came with P-05x is 2.0 meter. So OCD in me is freaking me out

So the question is, any HDMI cables would work with Esoteric, or do I need some special HDMI cables (like they call them i2s)? Any suggestions? Thank you

This is my guess, not authoritative.

I think the important thing is that the HDMI cable has to be of good quality. They are not made equal. Do not use fiber HDMI.

I2S is a different protocol, it is not supported by Esoteric (or Lumin).

Note that N-01XD supports ES-LINK version 5 to be used with Grandioso P1X. The P-05X supports ES-LINK version 4 only. Have you linked both units up and do they work?

Originally Posted by wklie

This is my guess, not authoritative.

I think the important thing is that the HDMI cable has to be of good quality. They are not made equal. Do not use fiber HDMI (since I believe they support specific video formats only).

I2S is a different protocol, please ignore it for your setup since it is not supported by Esoteric (or Lumin).

Note that N-01XD supports ES-LINK version 5 to be used with Grandioso P1X. The P-05X supports ES-LINK version 4 only. Have you linked both units up and do they work?

Thanks Peter! Yes they do work fine. The ES-LINK version 5 on N-01XD is backward compatible with the ES-LINK 4 on P-05X. I checked on this with Esoteric before purchasing the P-05x. I had no issues whatsoever when the P-05x arrived. DSD works like a charm on SACDs I have.

On HDMI cables... would something like Audioquest Carbon work? Audioquest Carbon HDMI 48 Cable

I have no reason to think it won't work. Get a short cable if possible.

Originally Posted by wklie

I have no reason to think it won't work. Get a short cable if possible.

Just a quick update on this....

Got two AQ Vodka (previous version, not the current 48 model, as it was on a big sale) HDMI cables. 1 meter each. (1) it works fantastic. No issues. (2) maybe ears are lying to me, but I do think they sound much better than the stock HDMI cables. I have only played three albums, two SACDs and one CD.

Thanks for chiming in Peter!

Since the clock is transmitted at the source (P-05X), goes through the cable and reaches the receiver (N-01XD), the cable that carries the clock signal will affect the jitter due to interference and noise, not unlike the coaxial cable for SPDIF transmission, I2S over HDMI transmission in other DAC or clock cable for external clock.

Originally Posted by wklie

I think the important thing is that the HDMI cable has to be of good quality. They are not made equal.

This is an audiophile forum so the need for good cable should not need to be explained. But this just happened again, so I feel the urge to mention it.

Recently we have acquired a batch of the cheapest $9.9 "Basics" HDMI 4K cable (6ft) from the world largest online retailer for internal use.

We encountered a problem with a 4K player device cannot output 4K video to a Denon 4K AV receiver. As you'll have guessed, the culprit is the cable. It remains to be seen whether the rest of the batch works or not.