Reviewer: Jochen Reinecke Sources: Marantz SA 7001 CD/SACD Player, Ippd Classic 80GB With

Reviewer: Jochen Reinecke Sources: Marantz SA 7001 CD/SACD Player, Ippd Classic 80GB With

Reviewer: Jochen Reinecke
Sources: Marantz SA 7001 CD/SACD player, ipPd Classic 80GB with Pure i20 dock, ProJect Xpression III with Ortofon OM30 Super
Amplification: Funk Lap-2 andDynavox TPR-2 preamps, Myryad MXA 2150 power amp, Yarland FV-34C III integrated
Loudspeakers: Neat Momentum 4i , DIY Fostex F120A widebander, Nubert nuBox 101 with AW 441 subwoofer
Cables: AVI Deep Blue interconnect, Kimber 4 VS LS speaker cable
Review component retail: €599
Electronic house Pioneer covers the network player segment with two models of specific appeal. The N-30 and N-50 diverge in circuit and mechanical details but also in connectivity, i.e. what type of sources they support. The N-30’s focus is on streaming (wired but for €70 extra with WLAN, for €35 extra with Bluetooth card) whilst the N-50 wants to also frollick in the currently super-busy DAC pool to add relevant socketry and features. Let’s take a closer look at the latter.
Want to hear files on your computer or NAS? Leash up the Pioneer N-50 via RJ45 Ethernet cable to a spare port on your Internet router. With a live web connection that’s how the N-50 also accesses Internet radio stations. To this the machine adds four digital sources. Around back there’s coax, Toslink and async USB digital which turns the Pioneer into a quasi external soundcard whereby the computer is used to access the files via a media player of choice rather than the network. The forth input is a frontal USB port for sticks or Apple-type mobile players. iPod & Co. are tapped digitally to move digital-to-analog conversion inside the Pioneer. Not a given and hence all the more welcome is enough current exchange on this USB socket to offer charge-as-you-play mode which even with the iPad’s thirst for power doesn’t falter. The earlier mentioned Bluetooth/WLAN options apply to the N-50 as well but weren’t part of my review loaner.
So much for inputs. Outputs will require fewer words: one analog RCA output, one each coax and Toslink digital output. Time for inner values. Relative to price those read quite upscale on paper. Both streamer and converter work with up to 192kHz data at 24-bit depth. Streaming is via UpnP or DLNA (1.5) which interfaces the N-50 with the majority of NAS disks, operating systems and music servers without fuss. On Windows the stock Media Player 11 is instant game. If you prefer something else, there are any number of freeware alternatives. I worked with TV-Mobili ( and the extreme low-load Serviio Server ( which barely taxes the OS. On Foobar’s home page there’s a DLL plugin called foo_upnp.dll which turns that program into a full-blown UPnP server.
The Pioneer N-50 supports MP3, AAC, WMA (each up to 320Kbps), FLAC and WAV (up to 24/192 over the network) and LPCM. If you’ve saved your files to Apple Lossless (ALAC), you’ll be only initially stumped until you activate ‘transcoding’ in your streaming software which enables the N-50 to convert such files on the fly into a digestible format.
Beneath the bonnet the N-50 offers discrete transformers for analog and digital which is another point of distinction over the N-30 which makes do with one. A proprietary “ultra accurate” clock retimes data independent of source or network quality and tweaks will welcome the DAC’s three selectable sonic profiles starting with Auto Sound Retriever. That’s meant for compromised data like MP3 and via DSP attempts ‘beautification’ to mask the various deleterious artefacts of lossy data compression.
Pioneer’s very own HiBit32 mode upsamples 16 to 24-bit signal to a “quasi analogue” waveform says Pioneer to particularly benefit nuanced retrieval of low-level signal. The third mode goes by Pure Audio and bypasses all DSP and quantization steps in favor of the shortest signal path to offer the highest fidelity and lowest noise floor. How these profiles might work in the listening room – and whether there were any relevant differences in the first place – we’ll get to in a moment. First to the face plate.
Here the N50 is sorted and functional. At far left sits the power mains (standby is via remote), at far right a control for start/pause, stop, skip forward/back as well as a function button which shuttles through all digital inputs. Adjacent to that on the left is an immaculately legible color display for album art and track title, format, sample rate and time. Via remote the same display gives access to configuration options and Internet radio tuning.
As DAC. To test this part of the N-50 I fed its coax input from the equivalent output of my Marantz SA 7001 SACD deck. A Funk Lap-2 preamp enabled direct A/B comparisons by getting analog signal from the Marantz via input 1 and analog signal from the Pioneer via input 2 to turn the SA 7001 into a simple transport. I began by cueing up Brit formation Spain’s brand-new The Soul of Spain. Its “Only one” opener is pure down-tempo delight with acoustic and e guitar, clean sync work between drums and bass, the longing vocals of Josh Haden and a frosty topping of female chorus. The Pioneer N-50 impressed from the go with a ripe, coherent spatially and compelling read. With a clean tonal balance, I had – old digital clichés die hard – perhaps expected a somewhat wiry bright sound to feel surprised by quite the opposite. This machine played it plain and neutral and if anything seemed endowed with a tiny tick toward warmth.
During the A/B against the spinner’s own analog feed there were differences. The Marantz had a tad more speed but not substance in the bass and the paralleled phrasing between bass and bass drum felt somewhat tighter and more immediate. The Pioneer countered with what my tastes identified as the better differentiated midrange and a skoch more spatial expanse with equally good stereophonic sorting.
That was an interesting effect but such impressions are always best confirmed with a familiar reference cut. For me that was the Thomas Kessler Group jazz trio with their exceptional drummer Harald Ingenhag from Aachen. “Still Belonging to You” kicks off with a furious drum solo against which Thomas Kessler starts to improvise brilliantly on a guitar synthesizer. This builds into a chaotic climax that turns into a gripping musical race which is underpinned by Wolfgang Diekmann’s driving bass. During this A/B I chanced upon the same effect. Via the Marantz converter the drums which are surrounded by plenty of venue reverb had a tad more bite, directness and energy wheres the Pioneer played that a bit more restrained yet pleasingly earthy and woody. Tonally then the Marantz felt a bit whiter. The N-50 better separated the timbres of the heavily abused hanging toms and thus felt more realistic. Further cross references produced similar results. Pioneer’s DAC was dynamically more relaxed (not lame!) yet had slightly better resolution in the midrange and it injected a bit more left/right expanse into the stage without sacrificing sorting. Stage depth meanwhile was a bit more generous with the Marantz.
Let’s move on to streaming where I used the Serviio freeware. I first fed the N-50 which was hardwired to the router via Ethernet link the uncompressed WAV file of the above Thomas Kessler Group track. As much as I tried, I heard no difference between the network and direct CD player feed. Of course that was sensible but not everything hifi always is. Well, time to fall back on the sonic profiles. I fired up a 128kbps MP3 file of “Still Belonging to You” and started with Pure Audio. Hmm, this was MP3 pure indeed – listenable but particularly in the treble and on decay trails a bit hissy as well as quite uncertain on overall timing. Time for Auto Sound Retriever. This had a very noticeable effect, nearly a bit like the new version of good old Dolby C. The sibilant sizzle and blur in the treble disappeared nearly altogether but the overall tonality of the piece now suffered a bit of color shift, i.e. the lower ranges put out less volume than the original. Even so this version was quite pleasing since most of the typical compression artefacts had vanished.
With HiBit32 these artefacts reappeared but now stage depth and image localization improved a bit. In general poor or very compressed source material did quite well in Auto Sound Retriever mode by making more palatable those certain oldies which one (cough) still schleps around from those ‘ancient’ Napster days. The Pioneer N-50 cut a very good figure on classical, say Shostakovich’s Concert for Piano, Trumpet and Strings in C-minor op.35 under Dmitri Alexeev and the English Chamber Orchestra. Here the Pioneer proved far more than the kind of toy its entry-level sticker might predict. Such serious challenging fare rectified that suspicion. Just a few seconds into the first movement one is confronted by gleaming trumpet sounds, wiry piano passages and saucy strings. The N-50 made no tonal missteps, felt extraordinarily at ease and portrayed a stable and well-organized soundstage.
Only the sudden massed orchestral tutti softened a tad where the internal DAC of the Marantz managed more mass. Microdynamically however the Pioneer was pure joy and even subtle nuances were cleanly captured. The elegiac closing passage of the second movement has the piano die out in a nearly kitchy ritardando whilst the strings hold a mournful minor chord. Both of these complex intermingling colors the Pioneer blended beautifully one into the other for very good dynamic contrast.
USB for iPod. Here I encountered a small surprise which I couldn’t explain but nonetheless repeat blind. Uncompressed ripped data sounded identical to network streaming. On compressed material meanwhile the network feed was slightly better and less hazy on the top end. Whether this was due to the particular digital extraction of iPod data I couldn’t determine but it was consistently audible if far from dramatic. Even so I’d recommend that those with mixed libraries where not everything is lossless feed their N-50 via Ethernet cable rather than the frontal USB port. Impeccable meanwhile i.e. identical to network streaming was the async USB port in connection with a PC. Here the Pioneer turns external sound card as previously mentioned. Uncomprossed fare suffered no losses but the quality of your chosen player software will obviously cause minor sonic changes. Whenever possible one should bypass Window’s own sound engine and select kernel streaming or a similar more purist setting.
Given the presence of Pure’s i20 digital-direct dock in our household which in Germany continues to be an insider’s tip, I just had to compare the N-50’s USB front socket. For a silly €99 the Pure offers an honest 24/192 integral DAC to make it big-rig compatible despite its somewhat plasticky appearance. To put it plain, the Pioneer offered tonally nothing which the i20 didn’t. Both seemed neutral and distortion free. And yet the Pioneer had the small advantage again on stage depth and image focus. That was nicely heard on Yello’s “Daily Disco” in whose second part all manner of synth drums flit about one’s ears. With the Pioneer I routinely twitched my head so as to instinctively avoid getting hit by shards of sound.
Next I had to sample web radio. That interface was basic but functional and via remote I could properly access different menu layers. To waste pixels on sonics would be silly however given how each station cooks its own stew for ‘sound optimization’ where true high fidelity is the exception rather than norm. But technically the N-50 encountered no glitches and let me sample the sonic variety of various stations at will.
A word on the remote. The wand fits the hand very nicely and makes for instant joy without any tired multi-function button shifts or similar complexities. Very nice. Pioneer’s free control app for Apple and Android kit meanwhile wasn’t state of the art yet. The Apple version still lacks HD support for the iPad likely because even in the iPhone version there’s so darn little space for lists – a meagre four rows – that one’s finger cramps just from scrolling to find specific titles and/or select them. Other makers already have better and more convenient interfaces. Sitting directly in front of the N-50, I prefer its remote in conjunction with the display. The app only makes sense when one sits far enough away to render the display illegible. Here I’d hope for updates. I also would have liked to see forward/back jumps within a track and gapless playback. But perhaps a firmware upgrade is just around the corner…
Conclusion. The Pioneer has merit as both a DAC and network player. In the best sense of the word it’s an affordable and surprisingly mature i.e. tonally neutral and accurate switching and playback console for digital signal of all colors. Buyers will secure a solid machine that sounds pleasingly ‘non-digital’ and with its quality internal converters can offer a stem-cell cure to aging CD players as long as those offer a digital output. Its different sonic profiles merely add lovely flexibility that becomes a real boon particularly with compressed music data.
Psych profile:

  • The Pioneer is tonally neutral and full range.
    Bass attracts no attention for any ills or colorations. Extension is excellent and even ‘way down there’ nothing is lost. Timing with infrasonic transients tends towards the relaxed rather than explosive.
    The treble is nicely resolved and balanced to neither feel crisp or shaded.
  • Macrodynamics are typical for the sticker, microdynamics are very good to cull much nuance from classic and other demanding music.
  • The N-50 evinces altogether good timing and a rhythmically astute gait, merely bass fiends might wish for more ballistic bass drums.
  • Staging is generous and realistic if not particularly deep. Image focus in both directions (front/back and left/right) feels exceptional for this price class.

Facts:

  • Concept: Network player, Internet radio, D/A converter
  • Dimensions and weight: 435 x 97.5 x 330mm (WxHxD), 7.3kg
  • Trim: Black or silver
  • Socketry: Digital inputs – coax, Toslink, 2 x USB (1 x PC), 1 x Ethernet: outputs – coax, optical and analog RCA
  • Other: Up to 24/192 resolution and data acceptance, Internet radio, optional Bluetooth and WLAN cards (€35/70 respectively), interface via front panel, remote or Apple/Android apps, AirPlay compatible
  • Power consumption: Ca. 30 watts at idle, less than 1 watt in standby
  • Warranty: 2 years