Digital Drive: REVIEW: AH! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD Player/Recorder by shermanr@prw.net Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

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Model:	Njoe Tjoeb 4000
Category:	CD Player/Recorder
Suggested Retail Price:	$579
Description:	Marantz CD4000 based, modified in Holland. Tube output stage using premium Wima/Vishay components.
Manufacturer URL:	AH!

Review by shermanr@prw.net on November 18, 2008 at 16:36:45 IP Address: 201.147.116.66

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My Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD player was purchased from Upscale Audio, the USA AH! dealer, some 6 years ago.

This review will focus on the following aspects of this very special and market unique CD player.

First, we cover the features and operation.
Second we will describe some issues encountered over 6 years of ownership.
Third we will summarize the overall experience and wrap up the review.

On the very first day, the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD player arrived well packed and in top shape. The following options were purchased and factory pre-installed.

- 192 KHz Swiss Upsampling Board
- Tjoeb Shoes
- Tjoeb Direkt AC Cord
- Tjoeb Noise Killer
- DeMat CD Rubber Mat

Included extra at no charge were a pair of Russian Rocket Logo 6H23 tubes, nice gesture from Upscale Audio. The Njoe Tjoeb 4000 comes standard with a pair of tested NOS JAN 6922 tubes. All 4 tubes were sent with white boxes. On the side label, are printed a barrage of Upscale Audio test results. Tests such as residual gas, noise, and microphonics it’s all there, even triode balance.

Attention to detail is one of the virtues of the AH! and their USA dealer.

The Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD player comes almost plug and play. A transport shipping lock and a simple 2-screw installation of a CD top plate stabilizer is all that is required. But this procedure requires that the owner open up the CD player. The factory includes and Torx driver as part of the kit as well as a pair of Op Amps.

The makings of a musical session, not to be forgotten, were just a few torx screws away.

From the very first note, the player sounded bigger, bolder and more natural than any CD player I had auditioned at home. The sound was on the big and wide scale, very musical, in a strong sort of way. The Bass response was truly open and deep with plenty of low end slam. This went over well in Bob Marley's Survival CD.

Treble and mids are coherent, almost with a velvety sweetness hard to describe. High Frequency extension with the 192 KHz Up-sampler is simply superb. Inner detail retrieval is a key strength of the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 with the Up-sampler, as is a smoother sound and a palpable presence in the midrange.

Frank Sinatra's New York New York was bold, brassy and hip. The Njoe Tjoeb 4000 did Frank justice. Female voices gain a special shimmer and sibilants are never exaggerated. I came to treasure this characteristic with Patricia Barber, Flora Purim, Diane Schuur and Billie Holiday.

Instruments are captured in their own acoustic perspective, plenty of air and harmonic textures unlike any Digital source in this price range I had ever heard.

After several weeks of break-in, the player started to really open-up and strut it's Sonics in a very pleasing and engaging manner. This did not change until year 3, but more about this later on in my review.

This Njoe Tjoeb 4000 player sounded more to me like good Vinyl than any CD player. Music flowed in a manner that allows the user to experience the composer’s frame of reference, as really intended, between the loudspeakers and the listener, pure and simple.

After weeks of use, the low octaves opened up very nicely, subjectively extending the low end on my loudspeakers. I confirmed this by swapping speakers and achieved a similar low end response on 8” and 10” woofers, superb weight.

The complete presentation of the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 from top to bottom was stellar. The music took on a lucid and vibrant quality not often found in any digital sources, much less sub $1K CD players. The Njoe Tjoeb 4000 played CD’s with both detail and drama..

The art of rolling 6DJ8, 6922, ECC88 and E88CC tubes makes small differences, with perceptible changes in micro-dynamics and scale, yet the original player’s sonic signature remains the same. It was like tasking different strength of coffees using the same cream and sugar.

Finally, I settled on a pair of E88CC Tungsram tubes whose sonic attributes worked well for me. I had several backup pairs, making this my favorite tube in the Njoe Tjoeb to date.

Decidedly content, I took the player to my friend’s house, who owns an MP-1 Atmasphere preamp, a pair of Cary 300B SE Monoblocks, paired with some second generation Zu Druid speakers. The cables were Cardas “Neutral Reference”, “Tara Labs” and speakers were fed by short stubby runs of Cardas Golden Reference.

Immediately I could tell that the player was able to ‘step-up’ and ‘out’, to show us it was making more music than my system at home could recover. So, I realized I had more of a source than my equipment could resolve. Suddenly, I was basking in the idea and realization that I was not to worry about "garbage-in" limitations, my new CD source was pure and the music flowed.

In a shootout, side by side with a Blue Note Stibbert, the Njoe Tjoeb sounded a bit on the dark and soft side, but to my ears, has a fuller low-end than the Blue Note player. Granted, the Stibbert is a hi-resolution 44.1 KHz Redbook CD player with a special build and suspended chassis, in a price range beyond any decked-out converted CD player like a Njoe Tjoeb 4000, but the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 was running the Up-sampler, so it was not apples to apples. The Stibbert was also using Balanced Cables and the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 used single ended RCA cables.

The transport mechanism is rock solid, spins and doesn't complain even after almost 6 years or weekly use.

The construction of the Marantz chassis is mostly average. The original Marantz metalwork on the case is of the lightweight type, akin to a common budget component player like a Sony or Pioneer budget CD player.

The Marantz front panel is solid, well laid out and the controls well responsive to touch, effortless in this way.

Inside the Njoe Tjoeb 4000, the component layout is superb with every piece carefully connected. The outputs use a relay muting a feature often reserved for the far more expensive products.

The EI and Toroidal transformers implemented are solid. The Wago connectors keep everything tidy and neat as well.

The Njoe Tjoeb 4000 player worked flawlessly for over 3 years, with almost no uncovering. Tube rolling was minimal, maybe once or twice a year running ‘open’ sans cover for easier access on the roll.

In the 4th year of operation, the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 player began to slowly lose fidelity. As this was my only CD player and I was almost always spinning CD’s, this was not immediately apparent to me. I began to blame my equipment downstream. This caused me to go into a ‘deep-rolling’ of amps, speakers, cables, tubes, you name it, I rolled-it.

Bent on looking for the lost Njoe Tjoeb 4000 sound, I blamed everything from the power quality, the tubes and the transport mechanism/laser. Still the musicality faltered and I began to suspect the player.

This loss of ‘soul’ caused me to test the player more and more against other sources like a Oppo Universal player and a Denon Multi CD player I also own. I knew then that my Njoe Tjoeb 4000 was indeed sick, but why, was still a mystery to me.

I continued to use the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 until it began to develop intermittent audio. My guess was that my CD's were dirty, so I cleaned them before each play. The intermittence was almost always towards the end of any given CD after being on for 45 to 50 minutes playing. It occurred randomly and got worse over the following weeks of use.

Then the unit completely lost its sound, dead. After some basic troubleshooting, with dealer coaching over e-mail, I removed the Up-sampler and installed for the first time, the Op-Amps chip set after almost 4-1/2 years in the box.

The Njoe Tjoeb 4000 unit sprung to life, but to my disappointment, the sound was not the same as when I first turned the unit on 4 years earlier. I attributed this to the loss of the Up-sampler feature, age, etc. This was to prove incorrect, as time passed and the new replacement Up-sampler arrived.

With the new Up-sampler installed, the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 worked, but it still did not sound the same as before. Somehow, the player lost part of its ‘soul’ and I was on a mission to restore the Tjoeb magic.

The replacement Up-sampler did show me, and unfortunately so confirmed, that there was something else wrong with the player. After almost 4 years of great music, the new Up-sampler did little to restore the original magical ‘sonics’, so I felt I had to do something else in search of that original ‘new out of the box’ Njoe Tjoeb 4000 sound.

Weeks later, the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 also developed a serious hum in both channels, which was found to be a cracked RCA ground pin on the PC board solder interface. I repaired the problem and the hum was solved. I attribute this crack to the pressure that the RCA interconnects places of the RCA Female part, putting a torque on the PC board that eventually weakened the common ground pin and cracked it in half. After all the chassis is thin and moved under pressure from tight RCA cables such as Vampire and some Monster types.

Also, with the Njoe Tjoeb's cover off again, and as part of my complete visual inspection, I was a disappointed when I noticed that the other RCA Digital-Out connector I never used, was a 'sliced' version of the same stereo connector used on the main output. I don't know if this is still the case, as the main board I have is now over 6 years of age. By sliced, I mean physically, the PC board mounted plastic and metal connector was 'cut-in-half' to make the single Digital-Out RCA Female. This obviously was an AH! factory production decision, yet I wonder, wouldn’t it have been easier to install a mono RCA connector from the start and not a cut version ?

In this process of troubleshooting, I accidentally broke the pins on the new Up-sampler despite the many warnings in the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 manual. This was all my fault, careless handling, mea-culpa.

So what’s next ? Well the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 player still spins after almost 6 years in almost constant use. The unit has always lived in an air-conditioned temperature controlled environment as I live in latitude 17.8 degrees.

Lately, and going a bit further in the search for the ‘lost sonics’, I did take some of the standard voltage measurements found on the technical manual posted on the AH! web site, all voltages were spot on the money.

One interesting fact about the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 is that the plates of the 6922 tubes used in this player operate at a low 51V and 30V respectively. Quite low for this kind of tube, but correct according to AH!

When I consulted over e-mail and told AH! that my player somehow has lost a little 'soul' over the years, AH! kindly suggested that replacing the two PC board surface mount electrolytic button capacitors, two 10 uF/50V that are next to the tubes, may help restore the sound.

I just may order a replacement main board, a new Up-sampler and get the job done. There comes a point when even the best troubleshooting results is the inevitable board swap. I have to stop whining sometime. My conclusion, the main board is not up to par.

In closing, the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 manages to play in an ultimately analog-like, smooth and polite manner. The player is able to extract the bits with organic sonic ‘bravado’, the Up-sampler simply elevates this performance to another level.

Operating the player in 44.1 KHz mode yields a decent soundstage while the sound with the Up-sampler installed places the Njoe Tjoeb squarely in the major leagues. Sonically speaking, the Up-sampler raises the bar much higher. To the chagrin of Up-sampling detractor purists who may claim that the Digital Gods only sing at 44.1 KHz, somehow my ears tell me I cannot agree with this.

I have not rolled Op-amps, but this is on my list of things to try. The output voltage on my Njoe Tjoeb 4000 is factory set at 2.5 V and works like a charm with my Aikido Rev.B Preamplifier and a McIntosh C28 backup preamp I also own.

The Njoe Tjoeb 4000 is a fun product, makes an excellent CD companion, and a very good overall performer. One thing that never changed over the years, the display was and is still very dim, even in zero light conditions.

Users are able to bypass the volume control circuit by pressing and holding the EDIT button to toggle this useful function.

Older mid 80’s and early 90’s CD’s sound better than on most players I have heard, even kilo-buck decks.

If you like to tweak, roll tubes and enjoy different op-amps, this is a good platform to have. If one prefers not to open-up equipment, make sure that you know how to at least change tubes every 4 to 5 years depending on use.

I rate the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 player as 9/10 on Sonics, 7/10 on long term reliability, 8/10 on innovation factor and 10/10 dealer support.

If it wasn't for the obvious and probably necessary "function-follows-form" AH! approach in the 'conversion' of the Marantz stock unit into this player, I would
say that this player is truly an amazing concept that should have it’s very own custom case, build and front panel.

The seed has been planted by AH!, this seed sprouted and is now a big bushy tree. The Njoe Tjoeb 4000 product today speaks for itself in this respect over and over. It’s here to stay.

What would a Njoe Tjoeb 4000 owner want in the future?

- Simpler access to the Tubes and Op-amps
- An Up-sampler in a more user friendly, less pin-breaking format
- ON/OFF capability from the remote, as one can only power the unit OFF
- A brighter and easier to read display
- Pacific microsonics HDCD chipset upgrade option
- PC/MAC based SW upgrade USB port for future enhancements

At the price levels being offered, you may never find a Tube based CD player that offers the music and enjoyment the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 provides. The ‘tweak’ factor is very high and allows users to interact with the player in more ways than commonly possible with other CD players out there.

With the current evolution of the AH! clocking circuit and the lowering of jitter, the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 remains a well positioned, music lover's CD player with no other product able to offer the options, flexibility and excellent dealer service.

This truly positions AH! and this product as a 'must try' tube based CD player product.

Keep on spinning and help us music lovers keep chillin!

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Product Weakness:	Dim display
Product Strengths:	Options, sound, performance, detail retrieval, and guts. Plenty of upgrades and options. Smooth tube based output section.

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Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier:	Atmasphere M60 MK2.3
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Aikido
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Linn LP12
Speakers:	Zu Druid & Mini Method
Cables/Interconnects:	Nordost Spellbinder
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Jazz, New Age, Blues, Rock, Reggae
Type of Audition/Review:	Home Audition

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