Pioneer N70 ae

[hiesteem]

So this Pioneer streamer is being discontinued in anticipation of its larger sibling, N90, due to arrive later next year.
Spoke to my local Richer sounds who offered me one for £950 with free cable.
Also a trial at home for 7-14 days.
Does anyone have any experience with this product?
Sabre DAC seems well put together, with separate analogue and digital power supplies.
Internal shielded casing, is always a good sign.
Gives a feeling of well-made audio quality and a nice looking product too. However, there's nowt like a wammer to shed some personal experience.

 

[lazycat]

I was close to buying a N50 when looking at streamers 5 yrs ago. Great reviews and looks like proper kit.

On the whole I'm glad I didn't. Life moves fast with digital, so I bought a streamer without a DAC. A Sotm sms-200.

I have no regrets in doing this - it's enabled me to try a few DACs until I found one I truly liked - which has only been recently.

I'd trial it at home first, and perhaps look at the new separate streamers such as iFi.

 

[naka]

A friend told me that it was the Pioneer app that is the big negative aspect of the N-70, and he sold it.
If you have the chance to try it in your home just do it, and return it if you are not pleased.
I have always want to test one...

 

[johncu]

I have the N50AE so no balanced outputs or DACs but otherwise quite similar, bought new a few years ago.
First off it’s a very nice piece, solid as a rock and beautifully finished with a subtle mid sheen brushed aluminium faceplate, certainly far better than any of the old black Pioneer stuff like the A400 etc. And it’s heavy, think integrated amp weight which says a lot.
Uses the ESS Sabre dac and sounds like it, punchy clear with good timing, imaging and pretty saturated colours. It does err on the feisty side of neutral so possibly better on rock and pop than classical. I use the digital out to another (subtler) dac connected to a separate input on my amp for a change of sound if I fancy it. Having said that there are a lot of sound shaping options on board including 7 position lock range, three digital filters, direct mode, hi-bit, up sampling mode etc.
The Pioneer app used to be a bit clunky but has been recently updated and is better for it. You can use the normal streaming apps and cast to it as well. It is actually very flexible both with software and hardware as it can be used as a dac, accepts USB sticks, acts as a music server if you connect a hard drive to it etc. Probably the most flexible bit of kit I’ve owned.
I used mine with Tidal for years and it sounded great, particularly with the “proper” high res MQA masters but suddenly they stared encoding everything with MQA at 44.1khz and a lot of them just sounded thick and syrupy to me. I changed to Deezer and find the majority of the catalogue more natural and consistent sounding.
It has been reliable to date and continues to give good service. I also find the on board screen handy when using the remote control if you don’t want to open the app or you’re using your tablet for something else.
Customer service support is good too. Worth a listen.

 

[johncu]

A friend told me that it was the Pioneer app that is the big negative aspect of the N-70, and he sold it.
If you have the chance to try it in your home just do it, and return it if you are not pleased.
I have always want to test one...

The app isn’t great compared to the streaming apps from Deezer, Tidal etc. There’s no album art and it’s just line based text really but it‘s functional. Another issue is adding and removing favourites. It doesn’t like writing back to the streaming service via the Pioneer app. Much better to open the Tidal app say and search for new music and add to your favourites there then access from the Pioneer app.
You *can* just use the Tidal and Deezer apps instead of the Pioneer one and cast them via Airplay or Chromecast or DTS Play-Fi which works with multiple streaming services. The Deezer app has a handy built in equaliser too.

 

[hiesteem]

I have the N50AE so no balanced outputs or DACs but otherwise quite similar, bought new a few years ago.
First off it’s a very nice piece, solid as a rock and beautifully finished with a subtle mid sheen brushed aluminium faceplate, certainly far better than any of the old black Pioneer stuff like the A400 etc. And it’s heavy, think integrated amp weight which says a lot.
Uses the ESS Sabre dac and sounds like it, punchy clear with good timing, imaging and pretty saturated colours. It does err on the feisty side of neutral so possibly better on rock and pop than classical. I use the digital out to another (subtler) dac connected to a separate input on my amp for a change of sound if I fancy it. Having said that there are a lot of sound shaping options on board including 7 position lock range, three digital filters, direct mode, hi-bit, up sampling mode etc.
The Pioneer app used to be a bit clunky but has been recently updated and is better for it. You can use the normal streaming apps and cast to it as well. It is actually very flexible both with software and hardware as it can be used as a dac, accepts USB sticks, acts as a music server if you connect a hard drive to it etc. Probably the most flexible bit of kit I’ve owned.
I used mine with Tidal for years and it sounded great, particularly with the “proper” high res MQA masters but suddenly they stared encoding everything with MQA at 44.1khz and a lot of them just sounded thick and syrupy to me. I changed to Deezer and find the majority of the catalogue more natural and consistent sounding.
It has been reliable to date and continues to give good service. I also find the on board screen handy when using the remote control if you don’t want to open the app or you’re using your tablet for something else.
Customer service support is good too. Worth a listen.

Fantastic write-up. There's nowt like an experienced wammer

 

[naka]

I have the N50AE so no balanced outputs or DACs but otherwise quite similar, bought new a few years ago.
First off it’s a very nice piece, solid as a rock and beautifully finished with a subtle mid sheen brushed aluminium faceplate, certainly far better than any of the old black Pioneer stuff like the A400 etc. And it’s heavy, think integrated amp weight which says a lot.
Uses the ESS Sabre dac and sounds like it, punchy clear with good timing, imaging and pretty saturated colours. It does err on the feisty side of neutral so possibly better on rock and pop than classical. I use the digital out to another (subtler) dac connected to a separate input on my amp for a change of sound if I fancy it. Having said that there are a lot of sound shaping options on board including 7 position lock range, three digital filters, direct mode, hi-bit, up sampling mode etc.
The Pioneer app used to be a bit clunky but has been recently updated and is better for it. You can use the normal streaming apps and cast to it as well. It is actually very flexible both with software and hardware as it can be used as a dac, accepts USB sticks, acts as a music server if you connect a hard drive to it etc. Probably the most flexible bit of kit I’ve owned.
I used mine with Tidal for years and it sounded great, particularly with the “proper” high res MQA masters but suddenly they stared encoding everything with MQA at 44.1khz and a lot of them just sounded thick and syrupy to me. I changed to Deezer and find the majority of the catalogue more natural and consistent sounding.
It has been reliable to date and continues to give good service. I also find the on board screen handy when using the remote control if you don’t want to open the app or you’re using your tablet for something else.
Customer service support is good too. Worth a listen.

Ok, great review.
What alternative apps you can use with the Pioneer?

 

[johncu]

Ok, great review.
What alternative apps you can use with the Pioneer?

It has native (built-in) Spotify, Deezer, Amazon Music and Tidal but also has Chromecast, Apple Airplay and DTS Play-Fi support so you can use any app that will work with these and then cast to the Pioneer. Hope that makes sense.
Here’s the Home Screen when using DTS Play-Fi.
Obviously you need to have a subscription to each service to use it.


Here are the options via the Pioneer app

 

[Rockchild]

@hiesteem

Pete, as you already have a stonkingly good DAC, just look at a Cambridge CXN v2. The app is great and integrates perfectly with all the media’s

 

[hiesteem]

@hiesteem

Pete, as you already have a stonkingly good DAC, just look at a Cambridge CXN v2. The app is great and integrates perfectly with all the media’s

Thanks Jon. I did take my Dac along to Richer sounds and spent sometime listening with the Cxn. Listened through spotify which was not bad but not what I am used to when listening through the Concret. I felt the sound might of been improved had he not used the digital
spdif cable as opposed to RCA cable supplied with the Cxn.
I did enjoy the Concept 500 speakers he was using, which was a pleasant surprise.
I would say the Cxn has a very easy on the ear sound. Pleasant, without detouring from that presentation.

 

[Rockchild]

Thanks Jon. I did take my Dac along to Richer sounds and spent sometime listening with the Cxn. Listened through spotify which was not bad but not what I am used to when listening through the Concret. I felt the sound might of been improved had he not used the digital
spdif cable as opposed to RCA cable supplied with the Cxn.
I did enjoy the Concept 500 speakers he was using, which was a pleasant surprise.
I would say the Cxn has a very easy on the ear sound. Pleasant and not going to deter from that presentation.

Also Spotify can’t touch Qobuz for sound quality.
Yes, I’m curious as to how he connected it up?

My Restek goes back next week via the dealer. Full upgrade and new DAC. New facia plate and better RCA terminals. It will take some beating that’s for sure. Tbh, I haven’t used my streamer for over two months! I’m enjoying going through my collection of CDs

 

[hiesteem]

Also Spotify can’t touch Qobuz for sound quality.
Yes, I’m curious as to how he connected it up?

My Restek goes back next week via the dealer. Full upgrade and new DAC. New facia plate and better RCA terminals. It will take some beating that’s for sure. Tbh, I haven’t used my streamer for over two months! I’m enjoying going through my collection of CDs

I believe the cable was the skinny digital piece of wire that comes with the CXN.
As we know, with better equipment, usually comes a better response with good-quality interconnects.

 

[hiesteem]

My Restek goes back next week via the dealer. Full upgrade and new DAC. New facia plate and better RCA terminals. It will take some beating that’s for sure. Tbh, I haven’t used my streamer for over two months! I’m enjoying going through my collection of CDs

Really glad you have got there with Restek. When you think about how comprehensive your upgrade is Jon, there is absolutely nothing more they could replace. Essentially you are getting a new CD player which would cost upwards of 5k given the engineering and component quality.