The audiophile manufacturer Luxman through its U.S. distributor Luxman America, has introduced its new NT-07 Network Transport.
The Japanese luxury home audio company states that its latest product is a specialized solution that enables the playback of a wide range of digitally based audio files, including streaming media.
“The NT-07 accepts sound files from local storage and music streaming services via Ethernet, USB, and HDMI, provides comprehensive playback control, then outputs audio to any external digital-to-analog converter,” says Jeff Sigmund, president of Luxman America. “As Luxman begins celebrating our 100th anniversary heading into 2025, we’re offering the Luxman NT-07 solution to all audio enthusiasts as a component allowing musical enjoyment with more depth and variety than ever before.”
Luxman NT-07 Network Transport Incorporates High-Performance Design Elements
Internally, the NT-07 Network Transport utilizes circuitry, power supply and chassis layouts the company says are carefully considered. Luxman engineers identified and reduced all sources of noise to arrive upon the product’s design choices. The core stages feature Luxman’s latest generation of high-speed application processor modules.
These components provide the speed and power to handle complex operations. The robust power supply section is fitted with a custom high-capacity transformer and a pair of special 10,000 µF filter capacitors. This highly regulated design maximizes stability while minimizing noise, according to Luxman America.
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Some of the other design elements the NT-07 Network Transport provides audiophiles include an uncluttered front fascia with just a single control: the power switch. Luxman America points out that users operate the NT-07 by smartphone or tablet with the free Luxman Stream app for iOS and Android devices.
The app enables listeners to configure, select sources, select songs, and control playback. Providing another control method, the company also includes an aluminum RC-30 IR remote control to enable listeners to operate the network transport without launching the app. The RC-30 can also control basic playback functions of Luxman disc players and up/down volume of Luxman integrated amplifiers or control amplifiers. To support unified system remote control, the NT-07 features rear-panel 12-volt control input/output terminals.
The NT-07 Network Transport requires connection to an outboard digital-to-analog converter (DAC) or a disc player featuring internal D/A converter access via its digital inputs, such as the Luxman D-07X, D-10X, D-03X and D-N150 products.
The NT-07 provides digital output via USB, optical, or coaxial terminals. The USB subsystem supports PCM sampling up to 768 kHz/32 bits and DSD sampling up to 22.5 MHz/1 bit. The optical and coaxial outputs achieve up to 192 kHz/24-bit sampling. To accommodate the widest range of DACs, the NT-07 provides MQA decoding with three selectable modes, Off, Core Decoding and Pass-Through.
For best results the company stresses, the intelligent resampling function matches the sampling frequency and bit depth supported by the connected DAC and supports PCM at sampling rates from 44.1k to 384 kHz. Luxman provides individual up/down sampling settings.
Additionally, the NT-07 Network Transport features a large, amber OLED display that provides information such as track and artist names, elapsed time and details on the audio format type, sampling rate, and bit depth. Moreover, the transport’s circle graphic depicts track elapsed time in relation to total time, starting as empty at the beginning and approaching the full circle as the track ends.
Here is a summary of the NT-07 Network Transport’s features:
- Network Attached Storage (NAS): The unit’s RJ-45 Ethernet port receives audio data stored on network hard drives via the industry standard Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol, as well as the OpenHome platform. The NT-07 works with audiophile-grade storage devices through its advanced power supply circuitry and noise suppression.
- USB storage: The NT-07 Network Transport includes front or rear USB 2.0 ports that accept files directly from thumb drives and larger USB drives.
- Subscription streaming services: The NT-07 offers access to 100 million music tracks via popular streaming services (extra-cost subscription required). These include Qobuz, TIDAL, and Spotify, with its recommendation algorithm. In addition, the NT-07 works with TuneIn, a free service that delivers radio and podcasts from around the globe.
- Planned Roon certification: The Roon platform plays back music files from iOS, MacOS, and Windows OS products and supports network streaming with easy-to-browse metadata, playlists, personalization, and the ability to display album, track, cover art, and lyrics on a television. The NT-07 is now undergoing certification as a Roon-ready output device.
- HDMI inputs and outputs with ARC: To support integrated audio/video systems, the NT-07 Network Transport also provides HDMI in/out terminals. These HDMI connections handle audio signals from televisions, Blu-ray disc players, game consoles, and other video sources. The NT-07 also supports Audio Return Channel (ARC) and two-channel HDMI audio output with PCM encoding up to 192 kHz sampling and 24-bit quantization.
- Digital Audio File Support: Supported file formats include WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, MQA, MP3, AAC, and DSD (in both DSF and DFF versions).
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