“I Just Can’t Get Enough” … title of a song by The Black Eyed Peas and Depeche Mode … and it’s also what I feel right now with the Neodio NR22 CD player.
 
For a die-hard analog guy, I just can’t stop buying CDs to feed the Neodio, after many years of not buying CDs !
 
It is a rare CD player that I found to have a sense of flow heard in LP playback, the least mechanical so far, even compared to an almost $100k SACD/CD transport + clock + dac we heard at the showroom once. Tonality indeed changes from disc to disc, as it does on vinyl. The dynamics of sound are easily discernible – i.e. the different degrees of softness and loudness in a music piece. For example, mezzo piano (a little soft), pianissimo (as soft as possible), mezzo forte (a little loud), etc. are all a delight to hear. A good CD that demonstrates this well is Doug MacLeod’s “Come To Find” or “You Can’t Take My Blues” albums from Audioquest.
 
Always musical, very good scale, excellent transparency without sounding edgy, unless the recording is that way of course. Ultimately, the real trick it pulled out of its hat is to make me go buy CDs, several times in a day.
 
The piano is one of the most difficult instruments to reproduce on hifi systems, and is one of the most pronounced weakness in many hifi systems. The phrase “high fidelity” in the hifi acronym becomes “low fidelity” when it comes to the piano. But with the Voxativ Ampeggio by Schimmel Pianos speakers hooked up, piano is rendered so beautifully well. I now go into the CD/Record store without hesitation on buying piano albums or albums with piano. Love it …
 
Experience it yourself at #02-44, The Adelphi, Singapore
 
Some wonderful disc titles I just bought are shown below. I already have some of them on vinyl too, but I thought they deserved to be bought again this time on CD for the Neodio. And at the CD shop … like a kid in a candy store, lots of wonderful CDs not found on vinyl. SACD seems to be on the decline, the latest CDs are XRCDs, 32-Bit masterings, etc. Anyway, I always preferred XRCDs ever since. End of the day, it’s all about the music.
 
* Update: Just went up again to get more, listening now to Fourplay’s first album, absolutely beautiful jazz fusion music with a warm tone and excellent transients. In comparison, their Greatest Hits had a much brighter tone and thinner sound. Well, so much for “greatest hits” compilations, try to get the 1st album, US pressing.
 
We welcome any recommendations, am always open to great music and sound, just reply to this post using the comment form below, thanks …
 
      
 
      
 
      
 
          … these are just a few …
 
And more for today …
         
*Robert Lucas – Luke & the Locomotives – “This is the Audiophile record of the century. A must have.” – Stereophile. – Definitely one to have for blues lovers, whether on vinyl (if you can find it) or on XRCD. Love the way engineer Joe Harley left the guitar amp distortions intact.