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Review: APL Hi Fi NWO 4.0 Master Edition CD Player

Category: Digital

I just had my NWO 3.0 up graded to the 4.0 Master Edition. What an amazing transformation. I was very content with the 3.0 but, this upgrade made my system SING. I was able to hear information that I had never heard before. I can actually hear the placement of instruments in orchestral works with sonic focus and bloom. With the female vocals; I was able to hear the emotional nuances of the singer and even movement of the microphone in live recordings.The sound stage is well defined without being hyper-detailed. The lows are deep, tight and controlled. The midrange is to die for. Highs are on par with analogue.
With some of my live recordings of jazz, I almost felt like I was there.

This unit now equals and can beat my Saskia and Talea / Dynavector XVs 1T turntable system.

This by far is the best CD/SACD playback system that I have owned and heard.

The 4.0 Master unit configures the AKM DAC's specially with low noise transistors ( a new break-through from Alex ) and uses special Lindaul output transformers with Oxygen Free copper wires.
Alex actualy had tried Amorphous core transformers but ultimately felt that the OFC Lindauls are the best.

Not only is this a great stand alone CD and Universal Player. I have experimented with using it as a DAC with wonderful results using the M2Tech EVO USB adaptor and computer Laptop.
Using Media Monkey and Monkey Tunes , I can control my entire digital music collection with my IPAD while sitting on the couch if I am lazy.
If I want to get more exercise then I switch back to using it as a CD player.
Thank You Alex for this wonderful work !!!



Associated gear
ASR Emitter Blue ,
Saskia Turntable with Talea arm
Genesis 1.1 Speaker System

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hifirabbit

Showing 1 response by fplanner2010

fplanner2010
283 posts
 
After a number of years, I finally decided to upgrade to the latest APL 1-box digital solution, in this case, the NWO-M. It replaces my 3 box Esoteric Ux-1pi Transport/ Esoteric Rubidium clock/APL prototype NWO-4.0 Super-DAC.

Totally unbroken-in, out of the box, its not really even close to what I had - voices and instruments have an even more palpable weight - as lifelike as I've ever heard, anywhere at any price. Pretty special, since I know its just going to get lots better as the different formats break-in. Won't be doing any critical listening for weeks, but it sure is fun to listen to NOW!!

SACD also benefits from the asynchronus upsampling at 195KHz/32 bit. While I don't pretend to understand even a fraction of the engineering that went into this piece, I DO know what I'm hearing, which is quite nice, even at this very, very early stage.

There is also now a facility outside of Chicago that has done and will do repair work for APL, both in and out of warranty. I've talked to them to confirm this and they do lots of warranty work for the major brands, so they are real. This helped my decision to finally do the 1 Box ultimate APL NWO upgrade. So far, this seems to be a very wise decision :-)
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