Newontech DAC 08, Pre 08, Amp 10
Newontech’s founder, CEO and passionate music lover, Ole Nielsen, is clear about a mission that seems more like a declaration of obsession. It’s all about the sound (well, it always is) but he stresses that many thousands of hours are spent listening and trying out different components before any product gets a sniff of being signed off. Extra mile stuff with bells on.
Don’t be fooled by the name, the Danish company has been around since 1990. It remains a small family business making pre, power and phono amps as well as a line in DACs. Everything is designed and built in house using ‘only the best’ components, some of which are of the company’s own design while others (capacitors, resistors, connectors etc) are sourced after discussions with customers. The bespoke approach also runs to custom paint jobs if plain aluminium or the standard colour chart doesn’t light your fire.
Today Newontech’s network of distributors is mainly in Europe. After launching its latest decoder earlier in the year – the high-functioning half-width, 8-input DAC 08 – there was a promise of matching pre and power amps with the same compact form factor to follow, making up a neat, minimalist separates hub. ‘No fancy functions,’ says Ole, ‘just turn it on and play’.
That’s what we have here. As the DAC came first, that’s where we’ll start. If you’re only turned on by converters that have FPGAs or resistor-based R2R ladder tech, the DAC8’s off-the-shelf Delta Sigma chipset might seem a tad complacent. It isn’t even a trendy ESS Sabre or AK item but a 32-bit Burr Brown (aka Texas Instruments) device which tops out at 192kHz. But it turns out that no one at Newontech is a spec junkie and the decision to go with TI was made purely based on sound quality being fine-tuned and finessed to a desired standard via implementation after intensive listening sessions.
The casework for all three Newontech components is made from heavy grade aluminium which can be left gleaming gently in the nude or painted a colour of choice as previously mentioned. The DAC 08’s 8 inputs include one asynchronous USB type-B, two coaxial (one RCA, one XLR), one BNC and three Toslink SPDIF. Outputs comprise a pair of single-ended RCAs and a pair of balanced XLRs.
Serving the optical and coaxial inputs is a Crystal digital receiver. The receiver and its phase-locked loop (PLL) have their own dedicated power supplies, while the Burr Brown (TI) DAC chips are driven via a buffer stage to ensure the integrity of the data being fed them. The USB input stage consists of a bit perfect Amanero USB Audio 2.0 with asynchronous clocking. The USB input feeds the DAC through an I2S interface to minimise jitter and secure timing accuracy.
The output stage employs a discrete differential, multiple feedback filter and output amplifier, with a high cut-off frequency for use with higher sample rates. Newontech elected not to use a sample rate converter and, instead, process the data at the incoming sample rate to keep signal processing to a minimum. Jitter is quelled by synchronously clocking the digital data.
There is no display, just a power up/down button and a rotary knob to move between the eight digital inputs. You’ll look in vain for a remote, too, but provision to use a PC or laptop as file storage/source is extensive and unusually audiophile-centric, with particular attention paid to eradicating the noise artefacts computers are typically plagued by.
The Newontech Pre 08 preamp is an equally straightforward purist affair with two inputs and two outputs. It employs a J-FET op-amp design for the input stage giving an impedance of 100 kOhm which Ole says is an ideal match for the different DAC designs. The volume control is based on Khozmo Acoustic type while the output stage uses another J-FET op-amp which ensures a low impedance of 75 ohm.
A cool-running, 90 per cent efficient Class D design, the Amp 10 claims 100 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms which climbs to 150 Watts into 4 Ohms. The power amplifier is a fully balanced design with an H-bridged output. The single ended input is transferred to a balanced signal inside that feeds through to the power stage. The filter stage is made with high-power, shielded inductors and automobile-spec capacitors.
Kit Kat Klub
Driving a pair of phenomenally revealing Oephi Immanence 2 standmounts, I try the pre-power combo with my regular Chord Electronics Hugo TT2 DAC and, naturally, the DAC 08. The Chord tie-up is interesting because the Newontech amplification doesn’t try to modify or mollify the Hugo TT2 DAC’s famously fast and forensic, front foot presentation. Allowing it to sound as potently alive and performance orientated as it usually does with a Tidal stream of David Bowie’s atmospheric live set at New York’s Kit Kat Klub in 1999 in the tender care of a similarly priced but much more powerful Hegel H600 integrated. In other words, energy and enthusiasm, while smoothed and finessed to a degree by the Newontech Pre 08 and Amp 10, aren’t slugged, rendering the dynamically expressive piano playing on Life On Mars in all its percussive, harmonically rich and low register resonant glory.
Plugging in the DAC 08, though, things change quite a lot. There’s a warmer, more ‘analogue’ feel to the same track, the Pre 08 transparent to the DAC’s different sonic priorities. These emphatically don’t include mountain stream clarity that glints and sparkles, or the sort of noise-floor scavenging detail that becomes an analysis fest, an end in itself. It’s true, some of the Chord’s tautness and timing punctuality is lost, likewise the extent and structured dimensionality of its soundstage. That said, there’s ample compensation through the enhanced sense of body, soul and fluidity, a palpable weight and presence that’s closer to most peoples’ idea of good quality analogue – arguably an easier sonic regime to relax into.
Standing down the Oephi speakers for an unlikely substitution in the diminutive shape of Boenicke’s W5 standmount with its solid wood enclosure, tiny full band driver, rear-firing tweeter and side-firing, long-throw woofer, introduces another transformation. The super-svelte Swiss transducer restoring a spacious soundstage and filling it with supple, tuneful bass and wholesomely natural tonality. Real synergy at work with the Newontech trio here. It makes for a fabulous bijou system that can go big and hit hard or be subtle and seductive and, whatever the genre demands, keep a beat.
Freedom
The beauty of this hi-fi hobby is its galactic span and the freedom it allows us on what true believers call ‘the journey’. The freedom to end relations with the devil we know, the freedom to take crazy, irrational risks, the freedom to make mistakes but, perhaps most addictively of all, the freedom to discover rare, unassuming gems. I reckon this Newontech triumvirate fits the description perfectly. It might come from a brand you’ve never heard of, its innate purism might hold back on a few creature comforts and conveniences. But as a neat, superbly built and finished high-end solution for sane money, I urge you check Newontech out.