After quite a bit of consideration and evaluation of options I decided to order an NT-505. After 2 weeks of solid use all I can say is wow!
now I will admit to not having the most "esoteric" kit in the world... : I run a Yamaha AVR strictly as pre-amp (when not in HT mode) with a trio of Denon POA-4400A's for front LCR stage, with LS50's. The KEFs are hungry things and the Denon's whilst vintage are imo an excellent monoblock which with 160W into 8Ohm strike a good balance. I had been leveraging the ESS Sabre 32 in the 3060 for convenience and it sounded more than adequate with Tidal. Spotify however was another matter. Somehow but for a few exceptions I was left wanting "more" - it simply sounded dull. admittedly, that is not helped by the Denon/KEF combo, which is extremely neutral. Anyhow, after a lot of research I kept going back to the Teac. I have no issues with this brand. I know it well from the 80's and in professional audio its been long established via Tascam as well as offering its very high end Esoteric brand. Tech from Esoteric is supposed to be strongly leveraged in the NT-505 and its peer range products. Build quality is excellent. The dual mono AK 4497 DAC implementation is imo outstanding and as per posts above, the upscaling is noticeable in its effect as are the various filter modes on offer. Tidal, MQA and Spotify are all natively supported, though the app (at least the Android version) is pretty much "just north of crap"... its main benefit is to check and control firmware upgrade, which it did flawlessly upon initial boot up for me... that said I simply use the native app to stream and the Teac is immediately there as a connect device. Sound quality is excellent. The soundstage, imaging and detail have all been noticeably positively impacted. Its really brought a new dimension of liveness to my KEFs through the 4400's which as I said, are very neutral. Some might describe it as a slight touch of warmth. In any case for my setup it has been absolutely the right add-on. Very easy to set up, great manual and super remote for initial set up. A +6dB volume option really drives the input signal up. After some playing around I decided to revert back to flat output. Display is basic but clear. Whilst the NT-505 is not Harmony remote available yet, the NT-503 is and, settings from that choice work without any problems (for those like me who like to have all their kit off one remote). All in all, I am so happy with it that I am strongly considering to buy another one to put in my work office to drive my Kappa's through my Proton D-1200 power amp.
