NVA 'TFS': 'The Future Statement' lands at Marco Towers...

[Marco]

Guys,

This is just a quick introduction to say that Jason 'figlet108' dropped a TFS off at my place on Saturday:











...and after spending a very pleasant afternoon and evening listening to the beast with Jason (who is a thoroughly helpful and nice chap), I've been playing a multitude of music through it over the weekend, from ripped CDs to tunes from Spotify and YouTube, I have to say that, sonically, it is very impressive indeed, and it is also very user friendly (vital for a computer numpty like me)!

I'd been looking for a high-quality music streamer, well not actively as such, but if one came up that looked interesting and did what I wanted, then I'd take it further, and the TFS duly tripped my radar. First impressions suggest that this is a very special piece of kit, which has been shrewdly voiced to reproduce music not only convincingly, but with in a way which is extremely addictive. The TFS is a seriously fun listen and has all the usual hallmarks of equipment which has been tuned judiciously by ear.

I'll go into more detail about my experiences with the TFS in due course, as through using it, I become more familiar with its talents. This is simply a short introduction, but so far, connected up to my modified Sony DAS-R1 DAC, the TFS is showing signs of producing the finest sound I've heard to date from computer audio; in fact it's shaping up to be the finest sound I've ever heard from digital music replay - period!!

Watch this space, folks, for more updates and detailed analysis.....

Marco.

[John]

I heard this at Richards about a year ago and was also preyyu impressed with it

[Ammonite Audio]

It was hearing an early TFS at Richard Dunn's house that really piqued my interest in this sort of music PC. So, inspired by Jason and the TFS, I have just built my own music PC, based on the same Asus motherboard, with a single Solid State Disk for the operating system and J River Media Center software, but without the modded Asus soundcard that the TFS uses. The TFS has a very large external linear PSU feeding the motherboard and (I believe) the sound card and the results speak for themselves, as Marco has pointed out. My PC just needs one external PSU (a Paul Hynes SR5) since I only use USB for audio, and it shows great promise. I am using all internal HDD storage for music, though, and with a pair of enclosed and silenced notebook drives spinning inside the case, my PC will probably never be as good as the TFS, but it will be good enough and it's certainly better than my CD player. Another reason why the TFS will probably always be better is the bespoke acrylic case, which has to be better than my pretty Wesena E5.

For the past week I've been ripping my CD collection to the new PC, using the secure rip facility in J River Media Center. It's been interesting to see how it copes with the few poor CDs that I have, some of which have required a lot of re-read attempts. Interestingly, I never realised which ones were poor before this, so presumably the CD player just made a best attempt at playing them, presumably with less than optimum results.

Welcome to the future, Marco!

[DSJR]

At last, and by unconventional means, Marco has joined the 21st century WELL DONE SIR!!! You'll be buying AVI speakers next (the ADM40 of course ) seriously though, there's a place for all forms of music making sources and hopefully, this one will complement all the others

Mr Figlet did give some chapter and verse on the basic design of this unit. T'would be interesting to know some more on here, if he wouldn't mind?

Am I now going to be accused of shilling for NVA????? It does look rather more "our" kind of thing than a tinny small PC box or an array of laptops linked together AKA Alex's excellent streaming solution

[Covenant]

I know Richard is not a valve man, is it right therefore to assume that the glass (or plastic) columns have no function other than to look pretty?

[Theo]

I'm enjoying my TFS at the moment: hadn't explored any additional DAC options, as it seems to "gel" as it stands. It will be interesting to experiment though, as it's still not as coherent as my Esoteric CDP.

The columns are acrylic and light up blue when the beast is switched on. I'm sure that Jason would be happy to oblige if the preference was for red. Looks good though...

[synsei]

Hmmm, whatever NVA are charging for this will be way over the top. Such a system could be built for very few sponduliks and you wouldn't even have to live with that awful case...

[Ammonite Audio]

Hmmm, whatever NVA are charging for this will be way over the top. Such a system could be built for very few sponduliks and you wouldn't even have to live with that awful case...

I don't know what the TFS costs nowadays, but my new media PC costs do add up to well over a grand, so it's not exactly dirt cheap to go DIY. Yes, you can build a cheap PC, but not a completely silent one that is optimised for audio, nor one that looks acceptable in the living room (IMO, of course ).

[StanleyB]

Hmmm, whatever NVA are charging for this will be way over the top. Such a system could be built for very few sponduliks and you wouldn't even have to live with that awful case...

You can't really blame Richard for the price. As is well known in the audio trade, a product is judged by its price. A higher price takes it into the high-end perception range. A low price would classify it as a budget product.

[synsei]

I'm not criticising for the sake of it, I'm sure there are people out there who wouldn't want to go through the hassle of building their own PC or haven't got the skills, just pointing out the route I'd take to save money. My PC sounds pretty damn good. it's silent and it stands me at 300 quid

I still think the NVA case is fugly though...