HiFi Subjectivist ¦ Audio Forum ¦ NVA User Group

I have just seen this on Facecrap, it does look smart well done.

The Future Statement as it was called.

The box at the bottom is a power supply with two output voltages (can't remember exactly what, something like 5v and 12v to suit the box at the top). The box at the top is a fanless PC with solid state hard disk and a cd drive in it. As supplied, it had windows 10 and a copy of some media library and playback software. You could play direct from the CD player but more useful was to use the software to rip CDs and store them on a disk somewhere. I believe there were around 20 produced and I have one.

However, as you will see from my sig, I've moved on.

It's a wonderful piece of NVA history if nothing else. Today's streaming solutions may have far outstripped it, but they don't look half as tasty.

terrybooth wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 12:38 pm However, as you will see from my sig, I've moved on.

Any particular reason for you moving on?

And have you moved on to something that sounds better, in the hi-fi Pi??
Or something that's nearly as good and is cheaper / more reliable?

Looks great well done.

That’s a picture I took of my TFS before returning it to NVA towers. It gave me lots of pleasure but was a bit ‘hair shirt’ in approach : it requires more user input into getting it to work well than I was willing to give it. I wanted a simpler life

It remains a fabulous sounding piece of kit though.

Lindsayt wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 4:41 pm

terrybooth wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 12:38 pm However, as you will see from my sig, I've moved on.

Any particular reason for you moving on?

And have you moved on to something that sounds better, in the hi-fi Pi??
Or something that's nearly as good and is cheaper / more reliable?

Moved on because I started experimenting with the Pi and DAC boards. Sonically, I found little to choose between them. However, because the TFS is based on a PC, you need some sort of Keyboard/Video/Mouse replacement to use it whereas the Pi - or rather the software which runs on it, has little need of them - only to set them up in the first place.

Maybe one day I'll get a version with separate power supplies (the TFS split the power supply for the PC from the power supply for the sound board) which might change the sound.

terrybooth wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 11:28 am Maybe one day I'll get a version with separate power supplies (the TFS split the power supply for the PC from the power supply for the sound board) which might change the sound.

I would be very surprised if separating the PSUs for Computer and Sound didn't change the sound.

I had one of these for several years, as part of an all NVA system (with a P90SA, TSS mk3 and Cube 1s. IIRC SSP interconnects and LS6 speaker cable).
I liked the TFS, and all the other gear very much, musically and cosmetically.

The TFS could operate with no moving parts (a heat sink and an SSD for the motherboard), and the ASUS Xonar soundcard was very good for the price.
The disc drive in mine was actually Bluray, which back then (over 10 years ago) was a necessity for me, as about 25% of the time I use my system for watching movies.

I love JRiver Media Player that came installed with the TFS. Yes, it can be a bit hairshirt, but another way of looking at that is that it is an incredibly powerful and useful piece of software with many tools and facilities. A bit like a digital version of a TT

In the end, I moved on from the TFS. Mainly because I found that the abilities of the motherboard (I think a Asus AT4NM10-I...?) were overtaken by the demands of modern internet use, and specifically of HD video streaming. So, when my TFS developed a fault a few years back I decided not to mend it and instead evolve my approach to digital audio. (In fact, I think I gave the whole thing away on here. To Mevyn I think...? Hopefully he's cannibalised it in some useful way.)

The TFS left a legacy with me though: I still use JRiver. And I so loved the humble ASUS Xonar soundcard, that I've moved up their chain of DACs.
Looks-wise though, nothing has been as attractive as the TFS.