Audio Technology Switzerland, the company behind the Nagra brand, has announced the introduction of a new digital source. Thirty years after the then state-of-the-art Nagra D, the first high-resolution digital recorder, and almost twenty years after the Nagra CDC reference CD player, Nagra releases a relatively compact and affordable streamer that offers all current hi- res formats can be played. The Nagra Streamer will premiere at High End 2024 in Munich.
Nagra Streamer
In the early 1990s, Nagra introduced the world’s first 24-bit/96kHz digital recorder. At the time it was simply called the Nagra D. This level of performance, which would soon become the standard for any digital recording, was the absolute highest resolution of the day and was way ahead of its time. It was widely used in the professional industry for both music and film production. Today, high-resolution audio is widely available (and affordable!) and can even be streamed from the Internet. So it was pretty much inevitable that Nagra would add a streamer to his portfolio.
The Streamer comes in a chassis as large as the legendary Nagra VII. Just as the form factor of the Nagra Classic line was derived from the Nagra V and the brand’s HD product line from the Nagra VI, the Streamer was meant to complement the form factor of its best digital recorder, the Nagra VII.
The Streamer’s chassis is compact yet solid, i.e. precisely CNC-machined from solid aluminum. The cabinet is robust and rigid, designed to be as large as needed, but no larger. The result is efficient placement on racks that are often filled with equipment where space is at a premium. Thanks to the size of the Streamer, it can be placed almost anywhere and connected to any DA converter via a long digital cable.
The Nagra Streamer supports direct streaming from Tidal connect, Spotify connect Qobuz and internet radio via vTuner. The device is expected to be Roon Ready in the near future and it supports wireless Airplay 2 and UPnP/DLNA for easy playback of local files. The Streamer connects to the local network using an RJ45 cable and users can also play files directly from any USB storage device using the USB A-type connector. Music signal comes out via an N-Link connection for Nagra DA converters and there is also an SPDIF connection for other DA converters.
The Streamer comes with its own external power supply, but users may wish to improve installation by using a Nagra ACPS, MPS or a Classic PSU 12 V power supply.
The manufacturer says the following about the Nagra Streamer: “Nagra is all about music. At Nagra we don’t follow trends and have taken the time to select the best available solutions to design, not just a streamer, but a truly great sounding, extremely neutral digital source. The Nagra Streamer is the missing link between modern music sources and your high-quality installation. It expands your listening pleasure to virtually the entire universe of recorded music via digital streams and high-resolution files. We think you’ll find it was worth the wait.”
We do not yet know when the Nagra Streamer will become available for delivery.
