I just brought a unit home 3 weeks ago. At US$1199 retail, it was worth a calculated risk since the first network player, the NA11S1 was well received by Stereophile. The NA8005 piqued my interest for 2 reasons - one, it could play native dsd and hi res pcm files from a USB flash drive, and two, it has a coaxial digital output.
Once unpacked, set-up was a breeze for my primary objective of playing hi res files from a USB flash drive. So, no more computer and usb cables. It was simply connecting the NA8005 to my Esoteric K-01 player's coaxial input.
Fresh out of the box, the sound emanating from the usb flash drive plugged into the front panel port, was in a word, glorious. If I was previously happy with hi-res via the Esoteric's own software for hi res audio called the HRA player, I must say I am completely floored by what I heard in the first few minutes. It was incredible! I had this sudden epiphany of what hi res is really all about. It is truly that jaw-dropping. All I can say is that with usb flash memory as source, coupled to the K-01's DAC section, there are gobs and gobs of detail, and yet, oh so silky smooth. Not only that, the soundstage opened up while notes floated effortlessly beyond the speaker boundaries in width, depth and height.
Bass is prodigious without being boomy, while highs are airier and more extended. As for the midrange, it's a "you are there" or "she is in your living room" sort of experience. Transients are as impactful as they should be while dynamic range between pianissimo and fortissimo is widened by a country mile. Finally, it all has to be musical and indeed it is - the complete antithesis of "analytical". The 8005 is not partial to any genre, serving out classical, jazz, blues or rock in equal measure. As the cliché goes, it doesn't get any better than this.
For this minimalist set-up, no computer or software interface is needed. The player just reads off the data from the flash drive and the artist, album, track, file type and sampling rate info are all shown on the display.
I do not intend to use the network/streaming function as that would entail the use of a computer with usb and ethernet cabling to the home broadband modem/router. Any of this along the signal path may introduce jitter to some degree.
One huge plus in ditching the computer is the handheld remote that allows you to scroll through all your music folders and files instead of having to get off the chair and use the mouse to open them. Of course you can use the app on your smartphone or tablet to control the player but then you need a wireless connection to your computer for this. I personally prefer to turn off all wireless connections during playback.
Caveats :-
Only usb drives formatted as FAT16/32 are supported. Unfortunately, NTFS formatted SSD/disk drives cannot be played by the NA8005. If you wish to play from an NAS or SSD/disk drive via your computer, you need to use the internal dac. All computer usb connections need to go through the internal dac and then via analog outputs to the preamp. To connect directly to your own dac, only usb flash drives plugged into the front panel port allow digital output.
To everyone into computer audio, try to bring an NA8005 home for an audition. You may just finally bid goodbye to computer interfaces, hard disk drives, background noise, usb/ethernet cables, etc.
Happy listening!
Jon.
