Newsletter November 2023

As we write, we are shipping the second HD PHONO batch. The first units shipped in early November are enjoying amazing comments by their owners. We are very happy to share them with you. Thank you for their amazing reaction.

Check the webpage with the below link :

NAGRA HD PHONO

Thank you Alma Music & Audio for this great sounding room! The set up featured Nagra CLASSIC PREAMP, powered by a CLASSIC PSU with a pair of CLASSIC AMP. The match was perfect with Boenicke Audio speakers, Kubala-Sosna cables and Innuos Statement server.

It couldn’t be a best way to conquer the East !!

While the 2022 edition of the New Music High End Innovation show was great, the 2023 show took on a new dimension. We were lucky to have the same great big room at the at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel in Brussels, last 11&12 November.

The number of visitors was impressive. Many people came to Nagra room and took the time to really listen. We had numerous exchanges, it is always a pleasure to meet long time Nagra customers as well as younger audiophiles.

The set-up was comprised of a full Classic range, built around the new CLASSIC DAC II. To match the Classic setup New Music kindly loaned an Oracle turntable with an SME tonearm to which we mounted a Nagra REFERENCE MC-6 cartridge .

Then we had a CLASSIC PHONO, CLASSIC PREAMP, CDC Player and a Nagra PSU to power the sources. High resolution played back from a Nagra VII Anniversary, from our Roon server (and especially unpublished extracts from the Montreux Jazz Festival and the Fidelio and 2xHD label) or directly streamed fromour partner  QOBUZ. This helped us to alternate formats for the demonstrations, with CD, high resolution files, and LP.

The amplifiers consisted of a pair of CLASSIC AMP of which we used one channel per speaker, not bridged.

This underrated option is often more transparent than bridging, though of course it does not provide more drive to the speakers.

The speakers were Wilson Audio Sabrina X kindly loaned by REFERENCE SOUNDS, Wilson’s distributor in Benelux.

The racks and amp stands were from Modulum, Canada.

We received amazing comments on the sound. The room was about 12 x 13 m (40 x 43 feet), a very large and almost square room. The speakers were extremely far from the wall (at least 3 m, about 10 feet) so they could express their full potential without bad reflections. We took care of the acoustics with heavy weight curtains and wood diffusors.

The result was a very open and wide soundstage, super detailed mid-range without any unwanted bleed from the bass. In these situations, you are reminded how much of the room you listen to in a normal environment.

For a relatively modestly sized speaker, the sound was big, which kind of took visitors by surprise.

We opted not to use subwoofer to show what a well balanced speaker and system can do. Of course, employing a pair could have brought another layer of realism, especially on acoustical recordings.

The new Classic DAC II which has been very well received by show-goers and reviewers, did a great job. Sharing its digital engine with the TUBE DAC and HD DAC X, it offers many of the qualities of its more costly brethren. We continue to be impressed by its bass performance. Tremendous bass extension coupled with great articulation are the operative words here – not surprising given the discreet solid state Class A output stage topology. Detail retrieval also impresses, easily equaling the performance of the TUBE DAC and HD DAC X – a function of the shared NADM (Nagra Audio Digital Module) digital engine. What a delight to uncover information previously unheard from our digital medium collections.

We will definitely be back next year !!

Thank you for reading.

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