GRACE NOTES

High-resolution audio has a new champion. This past April we reported that Nativ had launched an Indiegogo campaign to bring a premium high-resolution wireless touchscreen music player and DAC to production. It easily surpassed its funding goal by 316%—that’s $344,000 from its initial goal of $100,000. Well, to sweeten the ask, Nativ just announced they’re adding the Nativ Disc powered by Gracenote, a new CD ripping unit that continues their “bit-perfect” streak. Think no one cares about high-resolution audio? The 356 Indiegogo backers certainly care.

Nativ is making a fascinating new product lineup. While more and more people are getting their music via streaming, Nativ is making it simple for audiophiles to get the music quality they seek in a convenient, attractive package. Now, instead of importing files of questionable provenance, users can get the best quality they can from their original CDs. Granted, most people reading this have already ripped their CD collection, and hopefully they’ve used WAV or FLAC, but if not, this is a quick and easy solution, especially considering that the Nativ Disc repeatedly rereads the disc as it’s importing it for a bit-perfect copy. If you haven’t converted your collection, or have been putting it off, now’s the time. CD playback from the Disc is also supported, as is playback from an external hard drive.

Designed to seamlessly integrate with both the Nativ Vita with its 4-terabyte hard drive and 11.6” touchscreen and the Nativ Wave DAC/headphone amp, the new CD Ripper imports discs directly to the Vita in bit-perfect quality, in either lossless WAV, FLAC, or if you must, MP3. With the Vita’s 4-TB drives, it should hold up to 12,000 albums. It uses Gracenote to recognize the imported discs and display album data on the touchscreen of the Vita unit - the new CD unit connects to the Nativ Vita via USB. Gracenote will also create playlists for users from the imported collections.

As we noted earlier, the Nativ Vita supports Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, and more recently, the exciting addition of Roon. Now you can add your own library to the system, and stream music throughout your home over Wi-Fi (802.11ac) to any wireless system or headphone. Apple Airplay, Spotify Connect, Bluetooth aptX are supported, and Sonos and Bose SoundTouch are on board as well. Pretty impressive list of compatibility for a start up company.

The entire Nativ system also includes the Nativ Pulse, a power supply for the DAC in the Nativ Wave. When you put together the entire Nativ system, high-resolution is available throughout a household, via headphone, streaming or from your own curated collection of CDs. It will be interesting to see how successful this company is after its initial Indiegogo popularity ends and real customers get their hands on these products. And yes, before the vinyl community jumps all over this, a phono preamp product is also in the works. Further down the line, look for a Nativ amplifier as well.

The Nativ Disc will sell for $599, but you can get on Indiegogo for $499 or bundle it with the Nativ Vita for $1498, also on Indiegogo. Delivery is expected to begin in October of 2016.

While it might seem that high-resolution audio formats—players and delivery streams are struggling and no one is paying attention, it’s exciting to see an entirely new company and product line strictly devoted to delivering the best it can from current formats. Given that Nativ has far surpassed their initial funding goals, it looks like a lot of people are paying very close attention indeed.