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Introduction

Many audiophiles believe that the front-end of any system ultimately determines how good that system is. Consequently the CD player or the turntable (with its arm and cartridge) set the bar for the entire system. So what's lost upstream cannot be recovered downstream, in other words the rest of the system can not do better than what the front-end audio component is capable of. It's therefore reasonable to assume that your front-end is the most important audio components of all and that it should bare the lion's share of the system's cost. Then again today's advancements in audio equipment is fast paced, especially with digital front ends. The CD format, be it Redbook, SACD or DVD-A is gaining considerable ground every year. "Reference" class digital front-ends are quickly being overcome by less expensive and better sounding machines. Given this fast pace of change, investing heavily in a digital front-end may not be the best-spent audio dollar after all. If you're in the market for a new digital front-end, it would be perhaps better to search out those players that perform exceptionally well within an acceptable price limit. Such is the case with the now well-established Ah! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD player.

About two months ago I set out to upgrade my CD player. After considering SACD machines I ended up focusing on standard (Redbook) CD players. Although I believe SACD to be a superior format I ended up postponing my first SACD player purchase because of software limitations and because my collection is predominantly standard, Redbook CDs. I was in the market for a $1000 (USD) machine that would provide me with a noticeably better sound than my aging, but still excellent for the money, Cambridge Audio D500SE. After short-listing a number of players the Ah! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 was of particular interest. It had many things I was looking for: It's a stock modified player with quality components, it has a 24Bit/96kHz upsampling board as an upgrade option, it's equipped with a tube output stage (buffered), and something rarely offered by any other player: It's tweakable inside and out.

Strictly speaking the Ah! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD player is not necessarily a fair candidate for an AudioTweaks review. After all it's an audio component all on its own and as such does not quite fit in with the usual reviews done here. However this player being a highly tweakable production unit, straight out of the box, deserves most certainly a closer look.

Description

The Ah! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD player is designed and made in the Netherlands. The "Njoe Tjoeb" really means "New Tube". The player is built around a stock Marantz CD4000 machine. What makes it sound good are the various mods done on the stock unit. What makes it sound even better are the different accessories you can incorporate on top of what is an already tasty package.

The player has a number of standard accessories you can augment it with either immediately or at a later date as funds permit. The accessories are:

* Different tubes allowing for varying levels in sound quality but also different flavors in sound.
* Ah! AC Direkt power cord. The player does not have an intergraded IEC socket but rather provisions to directly mounting a power cord.
* Ah! Tjoeb Tjoens (Tube Tunes) Op-amp Flavor Kits allowing you to play with different Op-amps.
* Ah! Tjoeb Shoes, the recommended footer upgrades to the stock unit ones.
* Ah! TjoUpsampler 24 Bit /192 kHz Upsampling Board, in my opinion the exclamation in the "Ah!" of this player's name.
* Ah! Tjoeb Spare Ribs, i.e. nifty little tube dampers.
* De Mat CD stabilizer.

The drive mechanism is an excellent Philips VAM-1201 transport commonly used in players costing thousands more. The power supply has been beefed up by the addition of a second, dedicated toroidal transformer powering the tube output stage, and the entire output board has been revamped with quality components including, the jewels of the crown: A pair of tubes in buffer output mode. The unit comes standard with Philips JAN 6922 tubes but you will probably want to replace these with something more exotic. Also standard is a Torx T-10 wrench allowing you easy access to the innards of the player. The Torx wrench is really mandatory; you will soon find yourself going under the hood, over and over again.

The Ah! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD Player