Neodio NR22 Cd player - thoughts?

SOMusic, have you checked out audioexotics.hk? they have a full thread dedicated to Neodio. Let me know what you think if you get a chance to read.

Lloyd, yes I have followed the Audio Exotics thread. My inference is that many, if not all there, seem to favour it, some like it even more than the Stahl Tek. This is interesting because re UK pricing the latter is 4x more expensive (and let us not even consider the Opus version, 8x more costly!).
It does seem a few still give the Stahl Tek the edge, but there appears to be not much in it.
I particularly like the sound of the engineering behind the Neodio, utilising an analogue clock to counter the microphony sensitivity of quartz crystal, and it's fastidious attitude to damping/vibration control.
I'm also v. intersted to hear the Eera Tentation, which again uses over engineering solutions to enhance the sound of digital - both at a real world price (unlike the Stahl Tek). However the Eera has no UK dealership.
What is noteworthy about both units is that they are championed by renowned engineers both heavily pro analogue (Neodio by designer of DaVinci uber tts, and Eera by designer of Von Schwiekert spkrs). Both have dispensed with uber expensive cd players to settle on these, praising their warm, transparent analogue sound presentation.
Lloyd, can you be more specific as to the negative as well as positive comments you've heard re the NR22? And do you have any thoughts on the Eera Tentation?

2 people who heard it knew the system in which it was playing and felt it sounded flat/dull. These are people who love analog. i was extremely surprised to hear this, and these are people whose ears i think i know based on their numerous comments about other systems.

it was a slight shock to me to hear two such negative comments (off-line) about something so praised. Given how difficult it is to hear one, that made me less enthusiastic about trying to find some way to hear it. i woudl still like to and will let you know if i do.

i have heard the original Stahl-Tek and have spoken with Mike Stahl who is extremely helpful. It is excellent with detail and decay to match the DCS SCarlatti...but with a tonality/engaging quality that i much preferred. Still not enough to tempt me...but i have yet to hear 2 subsequent generations of Stahl-Tek.

Well there is a possibility of hearing the one box player, and transp/dac in the UK. What's interesting for me is that players which were touted as analogue like, ie the Marantz SA-1 and AMR CD-777, I didn't at all get on with, but the EMM CDSA SE esp. with German transport upgrade and X upgrade, which is not necc. the choice of analogue afficionados, really does float my boat, so much so that my prev. analog rig (Michell Orbe/SME V) began to take a back seat to the EMM. However I am aware of it's main shortcomings, common to all digital that I've heard, of sterile thinness thru the midrange, and a tendency not to represent the difference in tonality in different recordings. Reading between the lines, the Neodio seems to positively address these shortcomings.
In fact, satisfaction with EMM digital has directly led to my current choice of tt/arm which now give my record replay a much needed boost of digital like precision, and reopened the advantage of analogue over digital by quite some margin.
It is from this perspective that I'm curious if players like the Neodio or Eera can now give me something more back on the analogue presentation front.
So negative comments are definitely not the consensus when put along Audio Exotic HK forum board members, who unanimously praise it's transparency and tonality, associating it's sound with state of the art analogue (Da Vinci tt/arm).
The mystery deepens!

I agree system synergy is everything. I own the NEODIO and with the correct mix of components it is very engaging. I also had a chance to compare the Stahl-Tek before the OPUS upgrade, and found it to have a greater bandwidth, dynamics, and more expansive soundstage. What are the rest of the components in your system?