NuPrime CDT-8
Contents
Time for some American force. We have the NuPrime CDT-8. A 1,300 Euro drive.
As befits NuPrime, the box is nice and sturdy. On the front a few sturdy buttons, so that the unit can be used even without a remote control. On the back we see everything we want: coaxial, optical, aes and I2S via hdmi.
A special feature of this drive is the upsampler. CD can be “upsampled” from 44.1 kHz to all kinds of formats. That seems like nonsense, but it’s not. Every d/a converter has a sweet spot. If we remember correctly, according to Grimm Audio, that is around 176.4 KHz. Now it’s funny that we noticed that the Sonnet also sounds better at that sampling frequency. At least – in this test.
The NuPrime has more accent on the treble than the Atoll. Now the Atoll is on the warm side, so the contrast is kind of large. However, we also find the treble a tad sharp. However, this goes away for the most part when we upsample to 176.4 kHz. This difference is clearly audible and definitely positive: more real ‘air’, less sharpness.
We hear an equal effect with all three tracks. In general, the NuPrime remains a fresher sounding transport with an open character. It is a sound that focuses on vocals and paints a wide and big picture.
Measurements NuPrime CDT-8
The NuPrime shows a fast clock. The risetime is neat. The crazy thing is: when we measure the crystal itself, it’s actually not very good at all. We do measure 43ps of jitter (Avg), but the noise throws a spanner in the works. Our guess is that this crystal is clocking the DSP and the DSP is otherwise pulling the strings.
Noise is under control. It is fairly comparable to the Atoll. It is not the lowest noise of the test field, but it is fine for a product in this class.
There’s an interesting article by Stereophile about different CD transports and their impact on sound. Granted, it’s not very recent, but it seems that physics are still the same.
Know this one?
https://www.stereophile.com/features/368/index.html
Cheers!