Yamaha NP-S303 Network player
Yamaha NP-S303 player is made in standard for Hi-Fi component form-factor. Due to this reason it is quite spacious inside the body of the device - much space is not required for compact power supply and a small board of the network player. Conversion of digital stream into analog is released on the base of the famous Burr Brown DSD1791 chip from Texas Instruments, which supports not only PCM signals with the resolution up to 24 bit/192 kHz, but also DSD flaws of 2.8 and 5.6 MHz. The facade of the device is closed by stylish aluminum panel of black or silver color, on which there is a single-line information display, navigation menu and playback control joystick and also an active source selection button. To control the device you can also use a full-sized remote control that allows working not only with Yamaha NP-S303, but also with integrated amplifiers of the company. And, finally, you can achieve the greatest flexibility in control over the player, which can also be a part of the distributed MusicCast "multi-room" system, with a help of the company's app for mobile gadgets - Yamaha MusicCast CONTROLLER, available for iOS- and Android-based devices. Interface here is organized in an optimal way, you can understand the whole wide assortment of functions by intuition. Music playback is available from both the home collection on servers, global network with a dozen of available services and from thousands of Internet-radio.
To integrate the component into computer network there is Ethernet port 100 Mbit/sec and the built-in Wi-Fi adapter that supports 802.11 b/g/n specification. Also there is Bluetooth adapter on the board for wireless work with portable gadgets. Yamaha NP-S303 can play multimedia files from external USB storage devices too - the corresponding port is on the left part of the front panel of the device. Lightweight, airy and slightly cold feed of music material, filling the sound canvas with the smallest details, do not go beyond the facet, behind which the soulless dissection of musical recordings starts. Perhaps, at the playing of some tracks it will be not enough warmth and liveliness of images for you, and in complex parts of symphonic compositions softening of dynamical accents will be noticeable, but this is only in comparison with performance manner of devices of much higher class. By the ratio of price and quality it's very difficult to compete with Yamaha NP-S303. We'll note another characteristic detail - the device's ability to underline advantages of tracks with high resolution. Well-known compositions, presented in DSD and PCM format with parameters of 24 bit/192 kHz open to listeners new nuances and give bright impressions.
