The Nu-Vista revival continues as Musical Fidelity announces high-end DAC and phono stage units

Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista DAC and Vinyl 2
(Image credit: Musical Fidelity)

Musical Fidelity has announced two new products are coming to its revived flagship Nu-Vista range – the Nu-Vista DAC and Nu-Vista Vinyl 2 phono stage.

The company relaunched its Nu-Vista range at the beginning of 2023, introducing new high-end components such as the PRE pre-amplifier, PAM mono-block, PAS stereo power amp, and 800.2 integrated amp.  

The Nu-Vista DAC and Vinyl 2 units are both similarly high-end models, featuring the same large aluminium housing and clear control screens as others in the range. 

Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista DAC

Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista DAC (Image credit: Musical Fidelity)

The Nu-Vista DAC is a high-end digital-to-analogue converter featuring a Class A nuvistor tube output stage. It features several input and output options which should accommodate a wide range of digital sources, including three optical inputs, one coaxial input, a USB port, and one AES/EBU input. It also includes two pairs of line-level outputs: XLR and RCA.

This new DAC uses two ES9038QM chips in dual differential mode for a true dual-mono design and supports up to 768kHz audio in PCM formats, DSD256 via DoP, and native DSD512 via USB. This means it should be more than able to handle virtually any hi-res digital file type out there. There’s also a Time Domain Jitter Eliminator on board which is said to keep jitter rates below 100 femtoseconds – quadrillionths of a second.

Musical Fidelity NuVista Vinyl 2

Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista Vinyl 2  (Image credit: Musical Fidelity)

The Nu-Vista Vinyl 2 is Musical Fidelity’s flagship phono stage with a Class A nuvistor tube stage. It’s fully discrete and fully balanced, which the company claims should ensure that signal integrity is never compromised and remains true to how the music should be.

It features two pairs of balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA inputs, as well as balanced and unbalanced outputs. The Vinyl 2 offers adjustable settings for gain, capacitance, impedance, equalisation, and a two-step subsonic filter. Due to this level of flexibility, Musical Fidelity says that the Vinyl 2 is highly accurate with both MM and MC cartridges.

The Vinyl 2 also features three gain stages powered by Class A transistor circuitry. Audio signals from the phono preamp go to separate boards for each channel, which is said to guarantee the lowest levels of noise and distortion in the music.

The Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista DAC and Nu-Vista Vinyl 2 will both cost £9999 / €10,990  each and will be available from December 2023 in black or silver finishes.

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Staff Writer

Ainsley Walker is a staff writer at What Hi-Fi?. He studied music journalism at university before working in a variety of roles including as a freelance journalist and teacher. Growing up in a family of hi-fi enthusiasts naturally influenced his interest in the topic. Outside of work, Ainsley can be found producing music, tinkering with retro tech, or cheering on Luton Town.