The Sound

The ability to make voices sound natural is important for both music and movies. Any pitfalls here just take away from the listening experience. In the midrange department, be it male or female vocals, the N^o 40 reproduced them with remarkable clarity. Lisa Gerrard's voice on several tracks in "A Passage in Time" (Dead Can Dance, 4AD) was packed with emotion. Deeper male voices were absent of any midrange colorations. The warmth and richness of Ladysmith Black Mambazo mixed in with Paul Simon's voice on his Graceland album (Warner Bros., R2 78904) were delightful. I heard "Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes" several times, including providing John Johnson a taste of what this processor offered when he came by to give it a listen. Excellent vocal reproduction should translate into excellent dialogue intelligibility, and this was also the case with the N^o 40 when I switched to watching movies.

The first movement of Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances (Reference Recordings, RR-96CD) is a piece I have enjoyed listening to for some time. This is a dynamic recording, and the N^o 40 reproduced it effortlessly. The soundstage was spacious, with precise placement of instruments in space. While the points in space were distinct, the presentation was coherent. The treble was crisp and airy with plenty of detail. When the timpani were struck, it energized the room. I particularly enjoy the alto saxophone solo which takes place about halfway through this piece. This portion sets a somber mood, and what I found impressive here was the quiet background which made the saxophone really stand out. I could hear the textures of the instrument, and it sounded beautiful.

The perception of detail carried over to movies as well. While watching Dreamgirls, for example, there was a scene with prominent dialogue in the foreground and some clicking sound in the background. As I focused in on this sound it became obvious that a typewriter was being used, but there was none that could be seen in the room where the dialogue was taking place. As the camera panned, you could see a typewriter in use in the adjacent room. Subtle sounds such as these were at times distracting in that they drew attention to themselves. I can't really offer this as a criticism of the N^o 40 since it was simply preserving, and making audible, such subtleties which were clearly part of the audio track.

During the course of this review, I added some bass traps from ASC and also changed over to using a pair of Revel B15 subwoofers. The pair was set up in a mono configuration. These two changes really improved the bass articulation. The bloat of certain notes was gone and the deep bass notes in Blue Man Group's, The Complex (DTS entertainment) disc, sounded both deep and tight. While these enhancements were external, I do wish that there were some Room EQ mechanism available on the N^o 40 which would allow for further tweaks in this department. One additional feature I wished the N^o 40 offered is a phase control. Having to adjust the phase with a pair of subwoofers is a little cumbersome, but it does provide for some good exercise.

One limitation of the N^o 40 is the inability to use Dolby EX mode or any of the THX modes with a sampling rate of 96 kHz. This issue came to light when providing it multi-channel data with that sampling rate. The same applies to a multi-channel analog input, since it is automatically digitized at that sampling rate. I found the limitation with a DTS 96/24 recording or receiving multi-channel 96 kHz over HDMI. I also found this with the Toshiba A1 HD DVD player where the LPCM data are up-sampled to 96 kHz prior to transmission over HDMI.

Listening to the Eagles Farewell I Tour, Live from Melbourne on HD DVD provided for another enjoyable experience. Short of having an uncompressed multi-channel track, this is really quite a nice disc. The Toshiba A1 HD DVD player decompresses the audio bitstream and transmits 5.1 LPCM data over HDMI which it up-samples to 96 kHz. This is a good dynamic recording with some interesting use of the surrounds. The start of the "Hotel California" track has the horns mixed into the surrounds, and it really provides for an expansive soundstage. Coupled with Don Henley's smooth sounding vocals, the music had a good rhythm, and the timing sounded just right. I could also feel the excitement of the crowd all around the room as they went into a raucous uproar, encouraging the band for an encore presentation, to which the band did oblige.

All in all, the N^o 40 was an extremely well rounded performer across the audible band.

Go to Part VIII.