neilvg
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2004
- Posts
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- 41
Hey guys & gals,
So, I got a chance to listen to an NWO 2.5t at designer Alex Paychev's house today. For those of you who don't know, this is a CD/DVD-A/SACD player designed by Apl HiFi based off of the Esoteric UX-1. It basically uses the chassis and the VRDS transport of the UX-1, and discards the rest for a completely new design.
All incoming signals are upsampled to 5.4 GHZ after processing via 20 parallel AKM DAC's per channel. Additionally, the player has a balanced tube output stage (6H30 tubes). The DAC section is accessible via a digital input. Future features will also include an Analog Input, a a WIFI interface as well as direct proprietary connection for the Squeezebox. Additionally, there will be a Flash input where a Flash Drive will be able to be connected to the player. Whatever is being played will automatically be recorded to the flash drive in a sort of library fashion. Additionally, the flash drive can also play instead of the transport, which will be another way of accessing and playing digital music. Alex says using the DVD transport is still the best way in terms of Fidelity. So it seems that this is basically an Integrated pre-amp/DVD Player of sorts. It also has built in volume attenuatation so it can be connected directly to your amps - in fact this is the recommended route. This is a 2ch player with the video fully preserved and a digital out for connection to a surround processor if desired.
What interested me the most was that this player has been put head to head against some of the very best players out there: The full DCS Stack, the EMM Labs SE combo, the new Metronome Kalista (whoa take a look at that thing - http://www.metronome-technologie.com..._2.jpg?r=2548), the MBL 1621/1611, the Meridian 808, and on and on).
In almost every case, the seemingly unassociated with Alex or Apl reviewers picked the NWO 2.5t to be far and away the most natural, realistic, and involving source. The interesting thing was, they certainly were not dejecting the other players at all, and it seems the EMM Labs was chosen as the second best. So anyway, Alex invited me over to listen to his creation.
Alex has also created his own Amp, Speakers, Cables AND Turntable. His setup is pretty amazing. So I bring a bunch of CD's/DVD-A's/SACD's I am familiar with...
...I swear up until now, I would tell you that I believed only top end headphones could retrieve the kind of detail I was hearing. There were songs I have heard probably thousands of times (Rudiger by Mark Knophler for instance) that practically sounded brand new! It was kind of a revelation. I wasn't sure if his associated equipment, or his player was in large part the cause of this. So we hooked up my unmodifed UX-1 and took a listen. It sounded amazing! But it did NOT sound like the NWO. Not even close. It did not sound like the EMM Labs. Not even close. The EMM sounds good, excellent, amazing. But it sounds like a reproduction. Now usually I am not about reproducing the sound of a CD in the hopes of attaining something that sounds like real life. I have never previously thought that quite possible, or even necessarily desirable. But what is amazing about this player is that it simultaneously provides a highly euphonic yet extremely natural and lifelike presentation with a sound stage that is huge - almost too huge.
Anyway, I realize I am spilling my guts in praise here, so I will stop. I'll have to see what it sounds like when I get it back here and I can connect it to my HE90/HEV90 or the HE90/ES-1 combo (still as of yet unreceived).
One other thing that is interesting is that Alex has taken the output of his vinyl setup and input it into a highly modified PCI card in his computer which also has the AKM AD converter. He samples it at 192/24 and burns it via Discwelder. He then plays it on the NWO 2.5t and also on the Vinyl setup it originally came from. No difference can be heard! With 96/24 he claims a difference can be heard (hell if I know), but the sound quality was striking none the less. An interesting experiment. Maybe somebody could go into business converting a high-end vinyl drop to DVD? =)
Has anybody else been following this player?
Neil
So, I got a chance to listen to an NWO 2.5t at designer Alex Paychev's house today. For those of you who don't know, this is a CD/DVD-A/SACD player designed by Apl HiFi based off of the Esoteric UX-1. It basically uses the chassis and the VRDS transport of the UX-1, and discards the rest for a completely new design.
All incoming signals are upsampled to 5.4 GHZ after processing via 20 parallel AKM DAC's per channel. Additionally, the player has a balanced tube output stage (6H30 tubes). The DAC section is accessible via a digital input. Future features will also include an Analog Input, a a WIFI interface as well as direct proprietary connection for the Squeezebox. Additionally, there will be a Flash input where a Flash Drive will be able to be connected to the player. Whatever is being played will automatically be recorded to the flash drive in a sort of library fashion. Additionally, the flash drive can also play instead of the transport, which will be another way of accessing and playing digital music. Alex says using the DVD transport is still the best way in terms of Fidelity. So it seems that this is basically an Integrated pre-amp/DVD Player of sorts. It also has built in volume attenuatation so it can be connected directly to your amps - in fact this is the recommended route. This is a 2ch player with the video fully preserved and a digital out for connection to a surround processor if desired.
What interested me the most was that this player has been put head to head against some of the very best players out there: The full DCS Stack, the EMM Labs SE combo, the new Metronome Kalista (whoa take a look at that thing - http://www.metronome-technologie.com..._2.jpg?r=2548), the MBL 1621/1611, the Meridian 808, and on and on).
In almost every case, the seemingly unassociated with Alex or Apl reviewers picked the NWO 2.5t to be far and away the most natural, realistic, and involving source. The interesting thing was, they certainly were not dejecting the other players at all, and it seems the EMM Labs was chosen as the second best. So anyway, Alex invited me over to listen to his creation.
Alex has also created his own Amp, Speakers, Cables AND Turntable. His setup is pretty amazing. So I bring a bunch of CD's/DVD-A's/SACD's I am familiar with...
...I swear up until now, I would tell you that I believed only top end headphones could retrieve the kind of detail I was hearing. There were songs I have heard probably thousands of times (Rudiger by Mark Knophler for instance) that practically sounded brand new! It was kind of a revelation. I wasn't sure if his associated equipment, or his player was in large part the cause of this. So we hooked up my unmodifed UX-1 and took a listen. It sounded amazing! But it did NOT sound like the NWO. Not even close. It did not sound like the EMM Labs. Not even close. The EMM sounds good, excellent, amazing. But it sounds like a reproduction. Now usually I am not about reproducing the sound of a CD in the hopes of attaining something that sounds like real life. I have never previously thought that quite possible, or even necessarily desirable. But what is amazing about this player is that it simultaneously provides a highly euphonic yet extremely natural and lifelike presentation with a sound stage that is huge - almost too huge.
Anyway, I realize I am spilling my guts in praise here, so I will stop. I'll have to see what it sounds like when I get it back here and I can connect it to my HE90/HEV90 or the HE90/ES-1 combo (still as of yet unreceived).
One other thing that is interesting is that Alex has taken the output of his vinyl setup and input it into a highly modified PCI card in his computer which also has the AKM AD converter. He samples it at 192/24 and burns it via Discwelder. He then plays it on the NWO 2.5t and also on the Vinyl setup it originally came from. No difference can be heard! With 96/24 he claims a difference can be heard (hell if I know), but the sound quality was striking none the less. An interesting experiment. Maybe somebody could go into business converting a high-end vinyl drop to DVD? =)
Has anybody else been following this player?
Neil
