Navison Audio has been around as a manufacturing supplier to the Asian market since 2003 and functioned as a design company for three years prior to that.

Navison have recently launched their product line into the US, with pricing at a point that competes squarely with the likes of Conrad Johnson, Audio Research and Cary Audio.

With a small support team based in San Jose CA, Navison Audio can provide local sales and service to the US market, while retaining the cost advantage of a manufacturing base in Vietnam.

Navison Audio SE-MK II Preamp

Navison\’s top of the line preamp ($4900) is a vacuum tube based, microprocessor controlled linestage, with an impressive array of user-friendly features. For two-channel functionality it is similar to my Aesthetix Calypso Linestage, offering stand-by, mute, source, volume, balance and phase control, all without having to leave the comfort of your couch. Instead of the generic, tacky, plastic remote that comes with the Aesthetix gear, the Navison has a very handsome brushed aluminum remote with a very solid and “chunky” feel to it. The unit isn\’t HT-friendly as evidenced by its omission of any pass-through or sub-out connections. The SE-MKII has the bare minimum of connectivity one might require, with RCA inputs for three sources and two pairs of RCA outputs.

This preamp is simply a delight to behold. From the moment I released the unit from its packaging I was taken with its attractive appearance and solid feel.

The front-panel of the unit is a blend of hi-tech and traditional styling. A brushed aluminum panel houses LED indicators and push-button controls, the latter having a solid and tactile feel. The user-interface is flanked either side by very attractive Barian Kingwood panels.

At 35 LBS and 15.68D x 21.84W x 4.15H inches, this preamp is quite a handful to place and position atop the equipment rack, even for a brute like myself. It isn\’t the weight necessarily that makes it a little difficult to maneuver, but the physical size of the unit. This leads to one minor drawback, one that I believe to be a small miscalculation on behalf of the designers; it doesn\’t fit into a standard equipment rack opening and thus requires a place on the very top shelf in most racks. Spinning this differently, the top shelf is really where this unit deserves to be.

Navison recommend connecting their preamp to power amplifiers with an input impedance of 20k ohms or higher and remind owners via the comprehensive user manual that the preamp is phase-inverting.

An impressive resume of internal components prepares the listener for some of what\’s to come, not least of which are the venerable Jensen and Mundorf caps, and Riken resistors. At the heart of the unit The SE-MKII circuit employs eight vacuum tubes, all 6H1-EB\’s, which the manual claims offer low noise and low microphonics. With the SE-MKII connected to my Cary 2A3SE mono\’s the system exhibited just a hint of tube hiss, just barely audible at the listening seat and insufficient to create any real nuisance factor. My speakers are horn-loaded and rated around 106db, so are highly revealing of any component noise whatsoever.

Navison, much like Cary and several other tube amp manufacturers, recommend that you source replacement tubes directly from their service office, and back-up their tube selection with the claim of an anticipated two to three years of tube-life, if the unit is used in “normal” operation. By normal Navison intend that you switch the power button off, placing the unit into standby mode after each listening session.

Sound Quality

From cold, and it was cold, the unit being delivered to my Wisconsin location in April, the SE-MKII seemed to have a little too much tube bloom and midrange warmth. A little over-cooked as it were. Naturally one shouldn\’t listen too critically to any component that hasn\’t had time to fully warm-up, but let\’s face it; can anyone resist the temptation of taking a sneak preview of a new component as soon as it\’s been plugged in?

After 4 hours of warm-up (the unit was a well-traveled review sample, hence fully broken-in) the SE-MKII sounded, well, quite glorious in fact.

Gone was the layer of excessive warmth and in its place a wonderfully full-bodied and articulate presentation. This certainly isn’t a tube amp voiced to sound like solid-state. It has all the character of a tubed component and makes no attempt to hide its vacuum-tubed virtues.

But is it possible to have too much of a good thing going on with tubes? – After a week or so I decided to try and ascertain the true signature of the SE MKII by pulling the preamp and running source-direct into the Cary power amps. My Capitole MKII player has volume control in the analog domain and is a very worthy contender for a high-end preamp in its own right. With the Navison removed from the chain, the effect was similar to that of pulling the Calypso – the sound quality deteriorated. Some would argue that a source-direct route has to be optimal, since we’re removing a whole chunk of active circuitry from the signal path, circuits that must be imparting some undesirable artifacts on the sound. But as I discovered with the Calypso, the Navison provides a safe and unmolested passage for the signal. Its presence in the signal path provides the listener with a more lively and enhanced sense of dynamic contrast, versus the more laid-back and less involving sound of running source-direct.

So, is it possible to have a fleshed-out, scarily palpable image of Johnny Cash singing “Delia” in your room, followed by an uncanny unraveling of the micro detail in the plucking style of the late Michael Hedges? With the Navison SE-MKII preamp it is.

But what about all the other audiophile measurables like frequency response, transparency, soundstage, imaging? Well, the Navison concedes just a tad to the Calypso in soundstage width. Where the Calypso releases the sound more freely from the outer speaker boundaries, the SE-MKII hangs on to it just a little. This affects perceived transparency a tad also, with the Aesthetix perhaps attaining a 9, versus the Navison’s 8.5 out of 10. The Navison presentation is slightly forward of the speaker plane in comparison to the Aesthetix Calypso, the latter offering a slightly enhanced illusion of stage depth as a consequence of its more recessed presentation. The Aesthetix has a touch more energy at the top of the frequency spectrum, providing slightly more air and sparkle, where the Navison is just a little darker by comparison. With this slight top-end reticence one might expect a slight loss of image focus and definition to follow, but that is certainly not the case here. Imaging is first rate; solid, focused, palpable, without sounding artificially etched into space.

Bass from the Navison preamp is tuneful and extended with good pitch definition. I wouldn’t use the word “taught”, at least not in the sense we’ve come to expect from solid-state amplification, but it hangs together well and doesn’t tip toward excessive ripeness as many tube-based components often do.

Enter the NVS 572 Monoblocks. ($6900 pair)

Just when I thought it was safe to answer the door again, the FedEx driver rolled up with another two large crates.

Just like the SE-MKII preamp, the 572 amps were impeccably packaged, double-boxed in sturdy shipping cartons offering damage resistance of a standard to frustrate even UPS on a good day. (UPS mantra – if we can\’t loose \’em, drop \’em).

Fit and finish of the 572 is superb, with the same matching exotic wood trim as the SE-MKII, this time with the added embellishment of engraved lettering deep into the face of the dark wood surface.

Removing the first amp from its carton, I prepared myself for the weight to be distributed more under the transformer cans, thus requiring a front to back grip and not side to side. Surprisingly, the weight, an ample but not excessive 33LBS, was fairly evenly distributed front to back. A quick rap on the transformer cans produced a fairly hollow sound, confirming my suspicion that the extremely large cans are merely cosmetic covers for much smaller transformers.

Sound Quality

I haven\’t rolled many power amps through my system of late. The most recent to take the place of my little Cary 5 watter\’s for a while was a pair of push-pull Jadis JA30 mono\’s. The Jadis gear gave me a flavor of what a high-powered push-pull design could accomplish in a 106db system, which on paper at least doesn\’t require more than the little Cary\’s have to offer. The Jadis brought to the party two notable elements, both of which the Cary\’s lacked; upper bass/lower midrange impact – and tube noise.

The NVS 572\’s were quiet in my system, but like their stable-mate the SE-MKII preamp, they were not dead quiet. With the 572/MKII combo there was audible tube noise at the listening seat, more so than with the Calypso/Cary combo, but much less so than with the Calypso/Jadis combo. One of the advantages of a basement listening room, at least in my situation, is the absence of any distracting ambient noise – no refrigerators, furnaces, neighbors etc, so the slight tube-rush was a little disconcerting at first. Given more time or the potential of future ownership, I might have dabbled with PC’s or earthing arrangements to try to abate the unwanted background hiss, but it wasn’t really distracting to the point of driving me to such measures.

So how did the 572 amps sound in my system?

These power amps are certainly cut from the same sonic cloth as the SE-MKII pre. Their focus is to connect the listener directly with the music and to avoid shifting any emphasis onto the sound of the equipment. Dynamic, bold, full-bodied and detailed, are terms that best describe the sound of the 572\’s in my system. Again, as with the MKII preamp, Navison seems to have mastered the art of blending detail with a tonally warm and harmonically rich presentation.

On the excellent “David Gilmour in Concert” DVD, the Navison combo captured the acoustic space and delivered the event with a degree of palpability and presence that I haven\’t heard from my system before. More complex tracks from this DVD, such as the Division Bell cut “High Hopes”, retained the individual space of instruments on the stage, layered-in the backing vocalists with sufficient depth, and relayed the liveliness of the acoustic space without any discernable additions or omissions. With the volume set quite high, the stage never showed any sign of reducing in scale or becoming homogenized as the track evolves into its instrumental crescendo.

In the interests of fairness I must draw readers to the fact that my horn towers, as driven by the 572\’s, run only down to around 150hz, with bass duties picked up by a dedicated bass amp from 150hz and lower. So while I am able to assess the bass performance of the preamp, I can\’t comment specifically on what the NVS 572 is able to accomplish in the nether regions.

Conclusion

The Navison Audio NVS 572 and SE-MKII preamp are top-class components designed to provide complete musical satisfaction ahead of all else. Where some components thrust detail in your face in a way that draws attention to the equipment, the Navison allows you to bask in the glory of the music without distraction. Their harmonic richness and inner light, the kind that can only come from tubes, creates a perfectly illuminated portrait of the event and at the same time presents music with true to life presence and impact.

There\’s another aspect of the Navison equipment, even more subjective than the above, but worth mentioning anyway – pride of ownership. The equipment is so well built, so stunning to look at, and so ergonomically friendly, that you just want to place it in the most prominent position in your equipment rack and admire it.

For a full unedited version of this review and a complete run-down of the best that high-end has to offer, including audio equipment reviews and an interactive high-end forum / marketplace, visit NewAudioSociety Carlos Hruzamann

For the full, unedited version of this review, and to read more high-end reviews, visit http://newaudiosociety.com Carlos Hruzamann

Author Bio: For a full unedited version of this review and a complete run-down of the best that high-end has to offer, including audio equipment reviews and an interactive high-end forum / marketplace, visit NewAudioSociety Carlos Hruzamann

Category: Computers and Technology
Keywords: audio reviews, audio equipment reviews,hifi,high-end audio,stereo reviews