How much have you invested in compact discs?
Would you like them to sound as good as SACDs?
Then you should know about the new
Nu-Vista 3D choke-regulated compact disc player.
Only 500 people in the world will ever own one.
Most music lovers make a big investment in CDs. If you have a collection of only 200 discs, it represents an investment of £3,000. Now here comes SACD, and it sounds great. But there are only a few titles, they're expensive, and to play them you need an SACD machine. Does this mean your CDs are obsolete? No, it does not!
Musical Fidelity believes that music lovers deserve better. So we developed the new Nu-Vista 3D choke regulated compact disc player. It makes ordinary CDs sound as good as SACDs.
The Nu-Vista 3D CD player is the last Nu-Vista product ever, and the greatest. Chances are, there will never be another audio product made using nuvistors ever again, anywhere, by anyone.
How Musical Fidelity improved CD performance.
First we made a critical analysis of why normal compact disc players sound different to SACD machines. The main difference, which you can hear, measure and easily identify, is in the HF performance. Noise ratio and dynamic range make a small difference. It's commonly believed that the extended frequency response of SACD, up to about 100kHz, is the big reason why SACDs sounds different to ordinary CDs. But over the age of 25, most people can't even hear up to 18kHz, and the older you get, the worse this gets. People in their sixties or older can hear the difference between SACD and CD, so what they're hearing can't be down to the extended HF response.
Our research has shown that the audible differences between CD and SACD are caused by in-band non-linear distortions, group delay, phase-shifts and intermodulation anomalies.
So we have engineered the Nu-Vista 3D to ensure that it has dramatically better HF performance than ordinary CD players in distortion, phase shifts, group delay, inter-modulation, non-linearities and noise ratios. The result is that in-band (20Hz to 25kHz), the Nu-Vista 3D actually measures better than SACD.
To achieve this, the Nu-Vista 3D up-samples 24-bits at 96kHz. This takes all digital error artifacts out of band so they're not a factor up to about 35kHz. As a result, we were able to simplify and re-design the digital and analog filters to be far above the audio band, so that their phase shift and group delay is out of band. This allows for a reduction in overall feedback and simpler circuitry.
Why we put seven choke-regulated power supplies in the Nu-Vista 3D.
Quite simply, Musical Fidelity believes that the power supply almost is the amplifier. We have taken our famous choke-regulated philosophy and applied it to the Nu-Vista 3D. There are separate choke-regulated power supplies for the DAC, spindle motor, display, nuvistor HT, nuvistor LT, logic and remote control.
We've been able to provide all the necessary chokes by investing in the tooling to make PCB-mounted dual-layer differential chokes. An important point about chokes is that not only do they allow no power supply noise IN but also none is allowed back OUT. By putting choke regulation on every vital state of the CD player, we have ensured inter-stage isolation and an almost-silent power supply. Thus all elements of the Nu-Vista 3D circuit perform perfectly, with no interference from any other part.
Better power supplies = Better noise ratio
Better noise ratio = Better dynamic range
Better dynamic range = Better resolution
When we put this together with our up-sampling DAC improvements, we achieved dramatic improvements in CD performance.
Fanatical attention to internal layout helps, too.
In small-signal digital electronics, small details can have a big effect. So we paid close attention to the orientation of the chokes and transformers in the power supply, as well as all capacitors. Every detail of the layout was designed to minimize or negate any stray field from any part of the circuit. We even enclosed the mechanism in its own casework within the outer case. There is no stray field from the mechanism or its components. We may be crazy to do this, but we are on a mission to save the consumer a lot of time, money and effort by producing a CD player that makes ordinary CDs sound as good as SACDs
And now the nuvistor stage.
This last, and greatest, Nu-Vista product has an extraordinarily sophisticated circuit. This time, Musical Fidelity uses the nuvistors in dual-differential Class-A mode. We designed the circuit to incorporate any analog filtering required by the digital electronics in a simple, two pole, passive network within the nuvistor stage. In contrast, the A3CD (still one of the best-measuring and sounding CD players in the world) has a seven-pole, active, hybrid feedback filter. The pass-band ripple effects on the A3 CD are very low. But in the Nu-Vista 3D, ripple effects are much lower.
The HT power supply has its own choke regulation and the LT power supply (heaters) are separately choke regulated. Both power supplies are self-balancing, to ensure that the nuvistors are always working under optimum voltage conditions. All of the other active components in the nuvistor circuitry were selected for optimum bandwidth, noise, current and gain qualities, to fit in perfectly with the nuvistors.
The output stage is a fully complementary, high-current, low impedance, high damping factor arrangement, with very low feedback and wide bandwidth. Thus the loading of the interconnect cable and the amplifier does not create any colouration from the circuitry.
A limited edition of 500
Musical Fidelity has enough nuvistor tubes to build 500 Nu-Vista 3Ds and also to hold a spare set for every unit. (The limited edition Nu-Vista preamp, power amp and integrated are proving to be remarkably reliable, with a tube failure rate of about 0.1%).
Music lovers don't need SACD technology, they just need a better CD player. Now a lucky few will be able to own the Nu-Vista 3D compact disc player. Out of the total production of 500, 265 are allocated for sale in England, and of these, 97 have already been reserved.
If you want to own a Nu-Vista 3D, please contact your audio dealer without delay.
