I have been following this thread, and as one of the owners of the NWO-2.5 and poster on the APLHiFi website, I thought I might post here as well. There are many people posting both conjectures and actual comparisons with other equipment. I don't have an extensive laundry list of equipment to which I compared the NWO-2.5. I personally own the dCS Elgar plus and Purcell. Needless to say, they will soon be listed for sale.
I find one very important thing lacking in all of the posts in this thread....comparisons to live unamplified music. One would think that audiophiles don't care about that anymore. Perhaps no one goes to live music venues anymore. I think many professional reviewers have taken this same path.
My personal bias (and everyone has a bias) is, much more so, live music, not comparisons with more electronically reproduced music. I have been involved with live music in one form or another for over 30 years, studying, performing (vocalist) and attending live venues. I have recall of loving music since the age of 5, loving the emotion and space one can be brought to via a single work of music. I love a variety of musical genres and have performed both country folk, folk, and classical music. I also love jazz,
R & B, new age, world...what ever that is???
I can not add extensive comparisons to the latest and greatest pieces of equipment vs. the NWO-2.5 to this discussion. But, I can add my listening experience with the NWO-2.5 vs. years of live experience with music. I don't have to struggle to recall what any particular instrument sounds like in a live space, since I have been around live instruments for most of my life. The aural memory is ingrained.
I tend to judge reproduction of music by its emotional impact on myself. If it can move me, it is usually much more naturally reproduced....more similar to a live venue. For me, it is really that simple. Oh...I can break it down and analyze the individual and technical parts of the experience. My original reaction when I first heard the NWO-2.5 in Alex' system was...this sounds like live, unamplified music...I could "feel" the ebb and flow, the emotional interplay of individual instruments lines in every piece of music I listened to. It was so easy to get swept away and experience the performance as opposed to analyzing what wasn't right about the sound reproduction. On first listening, nothing distracted me from the experience of the music...there just wasn't anything to analyze.
That has been a rare experience for me, and I have listened to some pretty extensive and well regarded systems. My personal system has been upwards of $100K, but with the NWO-2.5, I am eliminating other pieces....going for a more simple approach. Seemingly, I am finding that anything put in the chain after the NWO-2.5, detracts from its musical performance. So simplify, simplify, simplify.
So those are my initial gut reactions to the NWO-2.5 playing a wide variety of music....classical, R & B, jazz.
On the more analytical side, what I hear the NWO-2.5 doing with digital media is that it gets the timing and drive of the live thing correct. It seems to cause the speakers to move more air than other digital front ends I have used or heard. There is seemingly more impact, even startling at times...like a live venue. This was amazing to me. Instrumental timbre was spot on with every instrument I threw at it (voice, piano, violin, cello, steel, nylon and cat gut string guitar, a variety of reed instruments (oboe, tenor and baritone sax, french horn, etc.).
For me, the NWO-2.5 put all this together in a coherent single piece of music that provided the magic that I get in a live venue.
For those that want to hear the more audiophile terms, yes, the bass is wonderful, impactful, tuneful, neither too lean nor too bloated; mids are weighty (not heavy) having the correct body, highs....maybe the best I have heard....oh so natural with "natural" detail and air. Imaging...I have not experienced a peer to the NWO-2.5. Remember that every piece of equipment interacts with the others in the chain. So, one may be able to make the NWO-2.5 sound less than it can.
Now I also wanted to talk briefly about the man behind the NWO-2.5 and that is Alex. He is the designer, the tweaker, the production technician, the final evaluator of every machine he creates. With regard to these aspects of his company, he is a one man show. Production numbers are, therefore, going to be low. I have known Alex for about a year and a half now and for me the one thing I can say is that I have rarely found another person who knows how to really listen and compare electronic reproduction to the actual sound of live instruments. He really knows what they sound like.
I am only a customer, and now friend. I have no financial interest in his company except a personal interest in seeing him succeed. He is a truly gifted man, being able to turn electronic designs (based on years of creating and listening) into musically accurate reproducers. He is incredibly impassioned with music and getting it right. His biases clearly align with mine. He is driven to continually improve his designs. I had originally ordered the 2.0 and he called me up, excited that he had found some changes to be made that significantly improved the SACD playback....well, they also improved the CD playback. That change is now the NWO-2.5.
To end....I am simply a happy camper. I have said enough!
Good luck to all in that elusive chase of their own "absolute sound."
Jeff
