Neodio NR22 CD Player

Alan Sircom, Editor of Hi-Fi+, has posted a review of theNeodio NR22 CD player ($18,900) at AVGuide. His conclusions:

If there’s one word that can sum up the Neodio NR22 sound, it’s probably ‘lithe’. The performance is fluid, natural, well-balanced, but most of all, it manages to sound like real music. This, above all makes the Neodio a rare pleasure to sit in front of, and you tend to listen to a lot of very varied music while engaging in that pleasure. It might not turn a jazz-hater into a John Zorn collector, but you will find new life in your old disc collection with the Neodio.

The USB input is actually very good and not just for show and to keep the player ‘cred’. It is certainly a lot better than most on-board USB connections (including the Musical Fidelity M6CD and M6PRE). It’s never going to eclipse a good DAC (even the HRT Streamer II+ and Arcam Solo rDAC show it a clean set of heels in ultimate clarity and focus terms) but it’s more than good enough to keep the NR22 future-proofed.

One final point; ignore the XLR option where possible. It’s not dreadful, but the single-ended is considerably better which means it’s probably something of an afterthought. It also benefits from really good power feeding it, and the Running Springs Jaco tested this issue did wonders to the already good sound, making it still more dynamic and insightful.

As people rush to write off CD’s future, it seems to be aping the progress of vinyl at back in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Back then, LP was a ‘dead duck’, and yet that period produced some of the best turntable designs ever, including many that have kept on going Р albeit often in highly modified form Р since that time. We then had the ‘vinyl revival’, the ‘final vinyl’ and the ‘revived final vinyl revival’ and I suspect this will keep on going until journalists run out of the letter ‘v’. I also suspect the same thing will happen to CD, and people will want more than just downloads and ripped discs. The NR22 is a world-class player that can do both well. I reckon this isn’t the last we’ve seen of this clever French brand.

You can read the full review here.