Different price classes - Esoteric F-02 costs roughly 1.8x what Technics SU-R1000 does. Expect it to lead on paper; the question is whether you will hear the difference through the speakers you own.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Technics SU-R1000 has more power - 150W against 120W into 8 ohms. That is about 1dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output nearly doubles (240W and 300W). |
| Built-in DAC | B | Technics SU-R1000 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Esoteric F-02 takes more analogue sources - 7 against 5. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Esoteric F-02 is Class A/B and Technics SU-R1000 is Class D. Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice; Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Price | B | Technics SU-R1000 costs less - $11,999 against $21,000 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Technics SU-R1000 is the cheaper watt - about $80 per watt against $175. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Esoteric F-02 B Technics SU-R1000
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Technics SU-R1000 is the easier recommendation: it leads on most of the measured areas and costs less. Take Esoteric F-02 if one of the "depends" rows above describes your system. If you already own a DAC or a streamer, the built-in one is money you are paying twice for, and Esoteric F-02 becomes the more rational buy. Think about the whole system: the roughly $9,001 saved by taking the cheaper one would buy better speakers or a subwoofer, which does more for the sound than the difference between two competent amplifiers.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.