At $4'995, today's Swiss cheese has far more holes than Nagra's Reference and HD lines. Those go a lot more solid on the cheddar. Melted down in a fondue, that could truly constipate the wallet. For the brand, this compact box is uncharacteristically 'within reach'. It actually lists in Nagra's Classic and HD ranges. And with a cheery huzzah at our household's radiation-allergic brains, it does no WiFi. One more reason to accept this gig; especially if it could deliver on the better-than-CD claim. Nagra's mechanical marvel that was their ejecting mechanism of the CDC/CDP/CDT models discontinued in 2021. Matthieu's job is safe after all. Progress won't be denied.

"The clouds parted. The sun shone brightly. My system sung. The sound was gorgeous."

Would I really write that?

Until we find out, here's something I culled from an interview between Greg Weaver and Andreas Koch, the DSD expert of Sonoma workstation fame. Andreas explains why for archiving purposes via A/D conversion, DSD256 has an advantage whilst for playback so D/A conversion, DSD128 hogs the sweet spot. This difference has to do with a delay loop in the clock cycle of the A/D process. A higher sample rate obviously reduces the delay and a lower delay is better. On the playback side meanwhile, DSD256 already hovers too close to the noise floor. To extricate the signal from that noise floor requires extra post processing. DSD128 avoids it and all else being equal, less processing means better sound. With Nagra's digital DSD-über-alles approach heavily based on Koch's, we appreciate why our Swiss team on Lake Geneva don't do DSD512 or 1'024. Sometimes the numbers do lie. Sometimes simpler is better.

This probably also applies to eliminating a USB output. It'd encourage higher more jitter-prone sample rates hustling down hopefully Ω-matched copper. Unless we own a Nagra DAC, 24/192 over coaxial S/PDIF is our bandwidth limit. But is it, really? Is Nagra's opto protocol actually proprietary? Or can it interface with, say Lumin machines with SFP ports? It's one more question for Matthieu. Using optical isolation to separate digital sources from the very sensitive analogue side is more Andreas Koch core tech. He implements it in his Playback Designs Dream, Edelweiss and Merlot DACs – across the board; on the very same sockets. That ought to be our first exception for the requirement of a Nagra DAC to tap their streamer's hi-rez fibre output. All Andreas Koch DACs should work. As his site puts it, "as we all know all too well, digital sources carry various degrees of 'pollution' by way of correlated clock jitter, asynchronous clocks in disk drives, CPU or displays plus many other negative effects. When these sources connect directly to a DAC, there's always a chance of some of this 'pollution' entering the DAC's analog circuitry. Our proprietary fibre-optic cable and galvanically isolated link prevent that." Here's what it says about his clock. "Our elaborate and sophisticated clock generator doesn't require to be locked to an external source. It completely shields any incoming digital audio stream from its sensitive internal clock circuitry through various stages of buffering with unique control algorithms. This removes any incoming jitter from external sources so well that no complicated master/slave clock setup is needed." It explains the absence of 10MHz clock links on Nagra's Streamer and all their DACs. They won't benefit from external clocks. Simpler is simpler and we're back at our audio beatnik not hifi extremist. The beatnik listens to predominantly CD-quality local or cloud files, the occasional 24-bit 96/192kHz job, perhaps even a DSD64 folder. For all of it, S/PDIF is sufficient; and a most mature protocol.

Today's Streamer would seem to quietly chide us for over-complicating things without sonically good cause. And don't rebels without a cause die young? "Our standard Lemo cable with the Classic PSU is 1.5m but we can supply up to 5m. The fibre-optics can do up to 500 metres I was told though I didn't personally try it. Whether the N-Link works with SFP I don't know but you can try." To accommodate my setup with the Streamer beneath the iMac and cascaded network switches, the DAC on the sidewall quite removed, I asked for a 4m umbilical to connect the Nagra DAC to the same external Classic PSU as the Streamer. That power supply can drive up to three Nagra components. It'd be a shame not to exploit two of its power ports for this gig. To also try the Streamer with my own DAC, I had a 6m coaxial cable. If I hadn't overlooked anything, everything necessary to do this review was in place. Six weeks later the adage "nothing fails like success" interceded. DAC II inventories had depleted and not refilled fast enough. "Sorry for the delay. Am still out of Classic DAC II and a bit desperate about it, actually. Do you want to start with just Streamer and then follow-up with DAC II and PSU?" Why pile onto Matthieu fielding endless apologies to dealers and distributors who were ordering for the oncoming selling season? "Absolutely. I'll start in 24/192 coax mode with my own DSD 1'024 DAC."

… to be continued…