Peachtree Nova in da' House

Got my Peachtree Nova last Friday. I’d put a deposit down with my local dealer back in January (John Barker of Sonic Culture here in San Diego). I’ve been following the news on delivery with some impatience, trying not get too excited. Feel like I’ve been sleeping in my car waiting to buy Stones tickets. I think I got in on the 2nd cut of the initial production run. John sent me a note last Friday telling me it was in, and I left work early to pick it up.

I put the Nova front and center in my main system, and connected it to a pair of AAD 2001 monitors using Audioquest Type 8 speaker cable with silver BFA connectors. I hooked up my Olive music server, using both the Coax digital and optical digital connections. I listened to some old favorites - a mix of pop vocalists and light rock, including Diana Krall, Celine Dion, Eric Clapton, Michael Buble, Rickie Lee Jone, Roxy Music, Dire Straits. At first listen I was a bit disappointed. Then, an hour or so later I was enthralled. Subsequent listening this past weekend confirms that the Nova needs to warm up a bit, but when it does, WOW. Before I get all giggly, I have two words to describe this unit - Spooky Good!

I’ve since re-connected it to my main mains – a pair of Gallo Ref 3.1 speakers – uisng some generic Home Depot speaker wire cut to a 15’ run. I also ran a pre-out signal to an Onix SP3 tube amp to drive the AAD 2001 monitors. (IC’s for that are DH Labs Air Matrix with the Audioquest cables.) Truth be told, the AAD set up outpaces the Gallos right now. There is a whole layer of richness down low with the AAD, but I’m sure the limiting factor is the cables. Either way, or with all four speakers firing, the Nova is bringing me lots of smiles. The Nova has an interesting feature in that when you plug in a headphone plug the signal to the mains is cut, but the signal to the pre-outs is not. (It’s kind of like a bastard Speaker A/B selector.)

Integrated amps with built in DAC’s are my main stay these days. Even at home I’ve gone digital for the most part, and while I still have an old Nakamichi cassette deck and about 100 vinyl LP’s, almost all my listening is via the Olive and/or iTunes. In my home office I have a Kingrex T20U (with external PSU) driving a pair of Linn Kan II bookshelves, and a Dared MP5 at the company office driving a pair of Arcam Alto’s. My Olive has a dedicated IP address, and while my Macbook Pro has a small library of music, I can listen to my entire digital library on the Olive from anywhere via streaming audio over the internet.

In summary, the Nova is everything I had hoped it would be, and I haven’t even connected anything else yet!

One interesting tidbit is that the sound from the Nova sounds better with the optical output (using a 1.0m Van Den Hul Opticoupler cable) from the Olive than with the coax digital output (using a 0.5m Zu Ash cable). Go figure.

System notes:

I made a trade for the AAD’s a while ago here on A’gon. They sit on a pair of metal speaker stands, which in turn sit on some large butcher blocks (24 x 18 x 3) which are resting on EVA foam pads. (I live in a loft, with hard wood floors, and the building construction leaves much to be desired. So I prefer to decouple the speakers from the building). The stand columns are filled with sand, and I added some Dynamat to both the top and bottom platforms. The blocks weigh 40 lbs each, the stands (with sand) maybe 30, so a lot of mass beneath each speaker, and each speaker weighs about 40 lbs each anyway. I use them 3 different ways: as a 2nd pair of mains, as a front speaker (with a center channel signal split to both speakers), and as speakers for my TV. They are fantastic speakers.

For the Gallos I have another pair of butcher blocks (18 x 18 x 3) resting on rubber floor mats. The Gallos sit on Aurios roller blocks which sit directly on the blocks. I’ve tried different set ups with these speakers, and this set up seems to work the best.