Neodio NR22 Cd player - thoughts?

2 people who heard it knew the system in which it was playing and felt it sounded flat/dull. These are people who love analog. i was extremely surprised to hear this, and these are people whose ears i think i know based on their numerous comments about other systems.

it was a slight shock to me to hear two such negative comments (off-line) about something so praised. Given how difficult it is to hear one, that made me less enthusiastic about trying to find some way to hear it. i woudl still like to and will let you know if i do.

i have heard the original Stahl-Tek and have spoken with Mike Stahl who is extremely helpful. It is excellent with detail and decay to match the DCS SCarlatti...but with a tonality/engaging quality that i much preferred. Still not enough to tempt me...but i have yet to hear 2 subsequent generations of Stahl-Tek.

Well there is a possibility of hearing the one box player, and transp/dac in the UK. What's interesting for me is that players which were touted as analogue like, ie the Marantz SA-1 and AMR CD-777, I didn't at all get on with, but the EMM CDSA SE esp. with German transport upgrade and X upgrade, which is not necc. the choice of analogue afficionados, really does float my boat, so much so that my prev. analog rig (Michell Orbe/SME V) began to take a back seat to the EMM. However I am aware of it's main shortcomings, common to all digital that I've heard, of sterile thinness thru the midrange, and a tendency not to represent the difference in tonality in different recordings. Reading between the lines, the Neodio seems to positively address these shortcomings.
In fact, satisfaction with EMM digital has directly led to my current choice of tt/arm which now give my record replay a much needed boost of digital like precision, and reopened the advantage of analogue over digital by quite some margin.
It is from this perspective that I'm curious if players like the Neodio or Eera can now give me something more back on the analogue presentation front.
So negative comments are definitely not the consensus when put along Audio Exotic HK forum board members, who unanimously praise it's transparency and tonality, associating it's sound with state of the art analogue (Da Vinci tt/arm).
The mystery deepens!

I agree system synergy is everything. I own the NEODIO and with the correct mix of components it is very engaging. I also had a chance to compare the Stahl-Tek before the OPUS upgrade, and found it to have a greater bandwidth, dynamics, and more expansive soundstage. What are the rest of the components in your system?

Just upgraded to Trans Fi Audio Salvation direct rim drive tt (I have a thread running on the Analog Forum) with Terminator T3Pro air bearing linear tracking tonearm. The banishing of belt drive time domain bass smear and neutral tracking of the arm is giving me all the benefits of analogue with the all the precision of digital. Interestingly, some of the tt's sound is in similar league with my Emm cd. Cart is Transfiguration Orpheus or Zu Denon 103 into a Tom Evans Groove Plus SRX phono, Hovland HP200 tube preamp/Radia ss pow amp, Zu Audio Definitions Mk4 xoverless FRD spkrs. I am also running the system thru a 4kV balanced power unit and have eliminated bass nodes with SpatialComputer Black Hole unit.
So my system is pretty well balanced, power uncorrupted, analogue as good as it gets imho, just curious if the Neodio really matches up to things mentioned in the HiFi Plus review esp. ability to really convey tonal differences between recordings - this is such a given on lp, but cd players even at the top end really do struggle not to homogeinise sound from one disc to the next.

Himiguel,

I found the Stahl-Tek Vekian to have separation and soundstaging detail the equal of which i have not heard before. It was incredibly enjoyable to listen to different elements of an orchestral ensemble with such ease...and to be able to listen to each set of instruments playing a contrapuntal element in contrast with another element of the ensemble...and to be able to do it all so effortlessly.