This is a review and detailed measurements of the Peachtree Nova DAC and Preamplifier. It belongs to my son who bought it years back prior to upgrading to the Oppo HA-1. Peachtree site still show it as current but I don't think it is available in distribution now. It cost US $999 when it first came out I think.
If you are not familiar with Peachtree, they burst into the scene back in 2007 and due to clever online participation and marketing, became a huge success. I remember threads with thousands of posts on them and people would eat every word about newer versions of them and such.
The Nova Pre is one of the largest and heaviest DACs I have tested:
Some of the weight comes from the very thick, glossy finished case though. I had to take that apart to figure out why the line outs were not working. My son had never tested those ports and only used it with headphones so it is possible it was always broken. There are a set of relays before the connectors that are permanently off and hence not letting the signal through. Didn't spend the time to see what is going on so the testing here will be on the headphone out port only. For the bit of testing that I did do, the signal out prior to the relay was at the same amplitude as the headphone so likely the same thing.
The claim to fame of the Nova was that tube which you could turn on and off in real-time using the ugly supplied remote. The tube filament is always on so it can be put in circuit immediately or taken out. Of course it also means that it will age quickly. My son only used it for a few weeks so likely it is as good (or bad) as it used to be when new.
Audio DAC Measurements
As usual, we start with our dashboard measurements with the output set to 2 volts:
This is "OK" performance I guess back in the day but clearly not competitive today:
Channel mismatch exists even in the dashboard so that is not good either.
Dynamic range is good at max volume but not so good at 50 millivolt output (for IEMs):
The latter lands it in bad territory:
For those of you who have been looking for the 50 millivolt rating of the JDS Labs atom, it is now in the graph and is at the top of the class.
Frequency response changes just a hair with and without the tube on:
Power versus distortion and noise at 300 ohm only shows a slight impact with the tube on:
I don't think that is audible and indeed my son said he could not detect the tube doing anything.
Performance with or without the tube were identical with 33 ohm load and poor at that:
Amazing how much praise there was for this series of DAC back in the day. And how much better we can do now.
Conclusions
Measurements show the Peachtree Nova to be underperforming the many alternatives we have today. Its tube is a marketing and visual gimmick with no value whatsoever. Quality control does not seem good given the failed pre-outs. Even if you can find this used at low price, I recommend looking elsewhere.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
I am out of shampoo for the pink panthers. Given the small army of them, repurchains cost a good bundle. So please donate a lot of money using:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview), or
upgrading your membership here though Paypal (https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054).
If you are not familiar with Peachtree, they burst into the scene back in 2007 and due to clever online participation and marketing, became a huge success. I remember threads with thousands of posts on them and people would eat every word about newer versions of them and such.
The Nova Pre is one of the largest and heaviest DACs I have tested:
Some of the weight comes from the very thick, glossy finished case though. I had to take that apart to figure out why the line outs were not working. My son had never tested those ports and only used it with headphones so it is possible it was always broken. There are a set of relays before the connectors that are permanently off and hence not letting the signal through. Didn't spend the time to see what is going on so the testing here will be on the headphone out port only. For the bit of testing that I did do, the signal out prior to the relay was at the same amplitude as the headphone so likely the same thing.
The claim to fame of the Nova was that tube which you could turn on and off in real-time using the ugly supplied remote. The tube filament is always on so it can be put in circuit immediately or taken out. Of course it also means that it will age quickly. My son only used it for a few weeks so likely it is as good (or bad) as it used to be when new.
Audio DAC Measurements
As usual, we start with our dashboard measurements with the output set to 2 volts:
This is "OK" performance I guess back in the day but clearly not competitive today:
Channel mismatch exists even in the dashboard so that is not good either.
Dynamic range is good at max volume but not so good at 50 millivolt output (for IEMs):
The latter lands it in bad territory:
For those of you who have been looking for the 50 millivolt rating of the JDS Labs atom, it is now in the graph and is at the top of the class.
Frequency response changes just a hair with and without the tube on:
Power versus distortion and noise at 300 ohm only shows a slight impact with the tube on:
I don't think that is audible and indeed my son said he could not detect the tube doing anything.
Performance with or without the tube were identical with 33 ohm load and poor at that:
Amazing how much praise there was for this series of DAC back in the day. And how much better we can do now.
Conclusions
Measurements show the Peachtree Nova to be underperforming the many alternatives we have today. Its tube is a marketing and visual gimmick with no value whatsoever. Quality control does not seem good given the failed pre-outs. Even if you can find this used at low price, I recommend looking elsewhere.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
I am out of shampoo for the pink panthers. Given the small army of them, repurchains cost a good bundle. So please donate a lot of money using:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview), or
upgrading your membership here though Paypal (https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054).
). Regardless of the OK subjective performance, the unit started to show serious issues after few weeks. All the SPDIF part were defective and Optical/coax inputs were unusable after a month. USB wasn't stable either with lot of driver crashs. The unit was sent to repair and the DAC board completely replaced. Then, I started to read on forums people complaining about theirs Novas 300 completely died. I ended up by selling this.
