NEODIO ORIGINE S2 CDP - REVIEW
NEODIO ORIGINE S2 CDP
Does History Repeat Itself? Why yes!
I recently had a conversation with a distributor, who shall go unnamed, who outright assaulted, figuratively speaking, the languid and unhurried return from the ‘dead’ of CD playback. He then went on to, well, curse its very existence. I listened quietly as I had heard a similar rant before, long years ago, when it was turntables being lambasted, in the selfsame manner. Little did they know, little does he.
In a prior review of another CD player—Accustic Arts Player II ($22,500)—I alluded to the beginning of the movie Transcendence where the internet of things was no more.
“The 2013 dystopian Sci-Fi film Transcendence, which features Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall, opens with a man placing a computer keyboard under a door as a makeshift doorstop. The ‘internet of all things’ has gone ‘kerplunk’—crashed with a thud—and Information Technology (IT) is defunct and computers obsolete. Got traditional HiFi, a CD player, a turntable?”
Or eight-track tapes or even cassettes for that matter. However, the fact that “between the years of 1983 and 2020 there were 15.1 billion CDs sold in the US” alone should itself speak to the premature demise of the CD player, regardless of the pontifications of some folks. And for those of you with, literally, warehouses of CDs, ‘there be gold in them there CDs,’ as technology moves ever forward.
In some respects, given my time with the NEODIO Origine S2, I may have been premature in stating that the Accustic Arts Player II was “at the forefront of this renaissance.” It is very possible that the current CD player under review may, indeed, be at the forefront of the rebirth and resurgence regarding the playback of the shiny plastic discs and at a much lower price.
REFRAIN: Unlike most reviews, this review will be non-sequential, as it will start with how the components actually sound and not the process of physically “undressing” them and/or laying out their various parts, specifications, etc. Think of this review then, as a non-linear movie—Memento, Kill Bill, Arrival, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Transcendence, etc—that, likewise, starts at the end and winds its way to the beginning.
The Sound
Alive! Natural. High-Fidelity at its best. I listen to the classic—Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (Blue Note)—CD and it is alive like it’s not been before, across the, literally, hundreds of times that I’ve listened to it. Could it be the NEODIO Origine S2, the VIVA AUDIO Egoista STX, the STAX SR-009S? Undoubtedly. But I’ve had the latter components hooked up and, well, ‘cooking’ before, when I listened to this CD, but it did not sound like this.
There is an ‘Aliveness’ in the sense that there is more ‘dimensionality’ and ‘ambiance.’ The three-dimensional nature of things has risen to another level and that ‘analog-like’ ease is insisting on not being called ‘analog-like.’ I want with all the intertwined fibers of my being to comply. In truth, long term listening is complying as the ‘aliveness,’ the ease, the sublime naturalness, and the holography compel one to say… “butter, not margarin.” Suffice to say, that, to date, no high-resolution stream—96kHz, 192kHz, 384kHz—has stood toe-to-toe with the Origine S2 and prevailed. Astonishing!
The NEODIO Origine S2’s sound is elegant, commanding, powerful when need be, and exquisitely transparent and ‘alive.’ I am reminded of the parsing of tone and timbre that is very much like the exceptional French integrated amplifier—the Audiomat Opéra Référence. While a good number of components work with say a box of 64 crayon colors, in relation to tone and timbre, the Opéra Référence works with a box of 128 crayons. The difference is immediately apparent, remarkable, and difficult to forget. This then is the NEODIO Origine S2 with regard to tone and timbre and the ability to bring them out, unlike, almost, no other component.
Yes, all the other high-fidelity buzzwords—resolution, detail, staging, transient speed, air, palpability, richness—apply, but then there is so much more. And coupled to the VIVA AUDIO Egoista STX electrostatic headphone amplifier and the STAX SR-009S electrostatic headphones all was made easily available. That is not to say that there wasn’t a similar or self-same magic with the non-electrostatic worlds, there was, but just a wee bit short of the electrostatics. And that I’ve reviewed the Origin S2 with headphones also removes the various anomalies of one’s room and speaker placement, interaction, etc. and turns the experience into, perhaps, a straight shot into those ‘veins’ called ears.
Did I mention that the NEODIO Origine S2 also decodes streamed tracks/packages/data to 24-bit/192kHz resolution? Well, it does and admirably so! And though this is a review, primarily, of the Origine S2’s CD playback abilities, its way with streaming does tend to make it an ‘endgame’ component.
Yes, my CD cache grows day by day, but then so too does my streaming cache, as there is great practicality and convenience in, literally, millions of songs at one’s disposal 24/7/365. However, for the connoisseur of music as a passionate and engaging experience the Origine S2 should, absolutely, be considered.
The NEODIO Origine S2’s volumetric cube—its soundstage—is prodigious. Like the Accustic Arts Player II it is also quite “vast with cavernous depth, great width, and substantial height.” And as mentioned above, the Origine S2’s staging ability is phenomenal. Likewise is its ability to lift the micro-details and transients necessary to bring one’s awareness to the space beneath the strings on a fingerboard, the reverberating space inside a drum, the microdynamics of a singer’s mouth forming and then releasing words, phrases, lyrics to the world is phenomenal! It is the combination of these things that bring truth, ‘aliveness,’ palpability to performance after performance.
The NEODIO Origine S2 CD was paired with the VIVA AUDIO Egoista STX HPA\E, the HeadAmp Blue Hawaii Special Edition HPA\E, the HeadAmp GS-X Mk II, and the Aurorasound HEADA HPA. The headphones used were the Abyss AB1266 Phi TC, the STAX SR-009S, the Dan Clark VOCE, Meze Empyreans, and the ZMF Atrium. Wires were Audience’s Front Row Cables and RSX’s BEYOND AC power cords (review coming) and AntiCable power cords. Power conditioning was handled by the TORUS RM20
BASS
Dramatic. Articulate. Commanding. Eiji Oue’s “V. Infernal Dance of King Kashchey” (Stravinsky, Reference Recording) plays and the drama, the potency, the palpability are more real than any stream, regardless of its highest resolution, to date, save the Grimm Audio MU1 via the Mola Mola Tambaqui in AES/EBU digital out mode (combo: $25,000). The Origine S2 as source allows for the Egoista STX and the STAX SR-009S to reach into the stygian sub-bass depths like they have not been able to before. And tone and timbre via the Origine S2 are as though flesh and blood in their verisimilitude and we are back to 128 shades of color as opposed to 64 shades of tonal/timbral color (see most streamers). The soundstage volume of this recording via this trio is voluminous! Does this CD player have ‘agency’ in regard to high-fidelity? Yes, it does. And this rendition of Stravinsky’s “V. Infernal Dance of King Kashchey” with the NEODIO Origine 2 as source provides the bonafides as it captures high-fidelity to the treble heights of Mount Olympus and the bass depths wherein resides the “Holy-Bass-Head-Grail.” The overall drama conjured by the Origine S2 is stunning. CDs are what, dead? No, they are not. I immediately play Stravinsky a second time all the way through and I’m on a deadline! Bravo!
Midrange
Shirley Horn's “Beautiful Love” (You Won’t Forget Me, Verve), a favorite track on a favorite CD, accompanied me for years to equipment auditions, as the arbiter of how well a system renders this very track. Throughout those years only a few systems passed muster and fewer still were acclaimed. Toots Thielemans’ harmonica now sounds with an ethereal clarity, textured holography, and timbrally rich, just above the very distinct guitar of Charles Ables. Has Ables’ guitar always been there and has it always been that distinct? I think back to the many years spent searching for just this, to have found it now in my home and with the Origine S2.
There is a moment of anticipation, a twilight of in-between, then Shirley’s voice rises, the lyrics, “Beautiful love…” are heard and understood from their formation to their articulation. Have I ever heard it with this much clarity, information, detail, nuance? I don’t believe that I have, though I do listen to it regularly. And I have employed the VIVA Egoista and the STAX SR-009S—the electrostatics—for this very song, but then not with the Origine S2. Hyperbole? No. I very recently sent back a much noted, five-figure streamer that could not cut the mustard, so to speak. It, the streamer, provided an undifferentiated, uninteresting wall of sound, comparatively. The NEODIO Origine S2, however, is its opposite, in every respect and brilliantly so. Yes, CDs are alive and well and, apparently, thriving.
I play Voces8’s “Prayer to a Guardian Angel” (Lux, Decca Music Group Ltd.) for further ‘clarification’ of the Origine S2’s talents and am quickly rewarded by the ability to discern, easily now Eleonore Sian Cockerham’s every word. Only the Accustic Arts Player II was able to successfully meet this challenge. The very expensive ‘streamer of note,’ earlier mention, failed miserably in this respect as well.
TREBLE+
Natural. Transparent. Musical. Air-filled. Immersive. Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” (Time Out, Columbia-Legacy) rolls in and is rendered anew! Joe Morello’s drum kit has never been so alive, so palpable, so ‘there.’ And Eugene Wright’s bass so potent and apparent in its layered space represents another quite unique moment. Yes, Joe’s cymbals shimmer with an air-infused brilliance and sweetness that has been, to date, unheard, unmatched and this CD I have heard, literally, hundred of times as well. This realization comes with every CD played via the Origine S2 revealing in many cases and for the first time fidelity as well as a musicality that seemed, well, absent. CD playback is decidedly not dead, but alive and dancing up a storm! Bravo!
The Wrappings and Accessories
The NEODIO Origine S2 CD comes in a quite large, heavy-duty, crate and box affair. One imagines the necessity of its construction in order to both house and protect the 55lb (28kg) CD player.
Inside layers of thick foam brace and protect the Origine S2 and its slim, black aluminum remote control, which handles a range of commands for both the CD player and the NEODIO Origine A2 EVO integrated.
The accessories to the NEODIO Origine S2 are:
A full-function remote control
A standard power cord
A product manual
The Origine S2’s ‘wrapper’ is a design-free affair, substantive in its makeup, and purposed with the protection of its quite valuable content.
Design—Look, Feel, and Technology
Substantive. Elegant. Delicious. As mentioned above, the Origine S2 is of a quite considerable mass and weight and may well take two to remove it from its flight case and place it in one’s system. Contributing to its weight are copper, aluminum, and HI-MACS (Corian).
Its design, given these materials, is elegant, minimalist, with a clean, easily readable font, and an engraved logo centered on its top face. A copper band runs the circumference of the Origin S2 and on its front face, embedded within the copper are the display, a hidden CD tray, and controls—Open, Play/Pause, Backward, Forward, Stop, Input Selector (CD, Amp)—from left to right. The ORIGINE logo is centered above.
The NEODIO Origine S2 CD’s back face features at its far left an on/off switch which sits atop the power cord receptacle. Right of center are two digital inputs—USB and coaxial. And beside the digital inputs two outputs—RCA and an XLR connections. Even its most ‘populous’ side represents considered minimalism.
The NEODIO Origine S2 is plug and play. The internet and streaming come into play only if you seek that avenue of music reproduction via its USB or coaxial connection and its 24/192kHZ resolving abilities and it too is very straightforward. The Origine S2 will play all of your CDs, CD-R, CD-RW, though it will not play SACDs, nor DVDs. Its DAC will not decode MQA, but it will, indeed, playback your streaming media from TIDAL and Qobuz or ROON, etc.
Conclusion
Alive! Natural. Elegant. Substantive. Delicious. Its facade is elegant in a form follows function approach that says “beauty” all the while singing with one of the most ‘analog like’ and delicious voices imaginable. One may find their shoulders dropping, the furrows across their brow diminishing, a stepped exhalation, and then a welcomed ease. The unfolding event will be the NEODIO Origine S2 player spinning your CDs.
For those who should know better, before they signal the end to yet another very viable and steadily maturing format, will you ever learn? And to the distributor who pooh poohed the rebirth of CDs, you do understand that a component capable of rendering an additional format and rendering it well, is yet another viable product to be distributed and sold? Perhaps not.
The NEODIO Origine S2 is a breath of fresh air or, perhaps, it is digital as analog in the selfsame way that analog was dismissed as “obsolete,” “inferior,” “anachronistic,” when it was not, as now referenced by the ever-rising growth of album sales. And that it also beautifully decodes streams is a complimentary faucet that, again, says, “endgame component.” The NEODIO Origine S2 is easily a DIAMOND AWARD WINNER and destined for AudioKeyReviews year-end award status.
Pros: Alive, Natural. Elegant. Delicious in both appearance and musicality. Substantive in its build and industrial design. Intuitive operationally—plug and play.
Cons: Heavy, large, the standard desk will not accommodate the Origine S2, nor will flimsy racks.
THE SYSTEMS
NEODIO Origine S2 CDP
STAX SR-009S
Dan Clark VOCE
Viva Egoista STX HPA\E
Audience Front Row Cables/Wires
RSX BEYOND, MAX Power Cables
Audience AdeptResponse aRS-T4 power conditioner
2.
NEODIO Origine S2 CDP
Abyss AB1266 Phi TC
Meze Empyrean
Meze Empyrean Elite
ZMF Atrium
ZMF Véríté
HeadAmp GS-X MkII HPA
Aurorasound HEADA HPA
Audience Front Row Cables/Wires
RSX BEYOND, MAX Power Cables
TORUS RM20 power conditioner
The Technical Specifications
The Company
NEODIO
ORIGIN S2 ($20,000)
www.neodio.fr/en
SevenAudio
7 rue Joseph Bonnet
33100 BORDEAUX
FRANCE