APL NWO2.5 ?

Hello Guido, the NWO-1 was entirely single ended design with 10 DACs per channel and single ended output stage. The NWO-2 is all balanced with 10 x fully differential DAC design which equals 20 DACs per channel (10 + 10 in differential mode). The tube stage was also re-designed to differential mode featuring new output transformers. The NWO-2.5 has the same differential topology as NWO-2 but it comes re-designed DAC boards, re-designed Master Clock and additional PCB which allows for much purer digital signal path. Conversion of DSD to PCM is changed from the original 88.2K to 176.4K. Since the AKM DACs are capable of 216K input sample rate, all NWO players up-convert all formats to 211K.

Regards,
Alex

Thank you Alex, much appreciated.

Well, I finally got to hear the NWO-2.5 tonight. My review of the player? ___________________(insert expletive here) unbelievable!

Alex said he had reached a point with the player where he was now unable to analyze or dissect the sound. We also found it impossible to do so. Everything we heard sounded like music, plain and simple.

During a piece by Rachmaninov, Alex asked if I heard the triangle struck in the background, and then muted by a hand. "Yes, I heard it," I said, "and saw it, too." If you can get one, do it. That's all I can say.

I do want to mention that I'm glad that Alex is going to redesign his site. I was thinking that people could help him in this area. His Forums are good, though. For those with less cash(who are reading this), his Denon 3910(my version) is unbelievable!

I was interested in purchasing a Meridian 808i and in doing research ran across this thread, in which fiesty supporters of the NWO 2.5 show Meridian supporters no mercy. Mibviking says that it "crushes" the Meridian. Boa2 says that the poor Meridian sits on the sidelines (bested by units that cost three times as much). I find the APL NWO 2.5 very interesting, and feel it must be an awesome machine. But the fact that product is so expensive and info is so scarce, it seems remarkable to me that anyone would purchase one of these units to ever know how good it was. You talk about a leap of faith, a $20000 one at that. Meridian is a bonfide, top notch company whose reputation is impeccable. Where will Alex be in five years when your unit fails? Where will Meridian be? Enough said. I'll take a "crushed" Meridian please. As a matter of fact, I ordered one today.