"They kept the musicality, the smoothness, the richness and the dynamics and brought it even to a higher level. Very obvious is the cleaner sound. The location and size of instruments and voices has a much better focus. Depth can be scaring in a good setup. Very detailled, yet absolutely no sign of harshness. The bottom-end is absolutely better: tighter, deeper and better control. Wide but realistic soundstage, totally free from the loudspeakers, in which you can pinpoint voices and instruments to a degree that is almost unbelievable for a player from this price-range. Full compliments to Frank van Duijvenvoorde and his listeningpanel, who succeeded in bringing this Tjoebification to a higher level again!"

"As an early owner of an AH! Tjoeb 98 and 99, I was so lucky to discover that there was something "njoe" in the air! Frank was working on a Njoe (pronounce: new) Tjoeb. Reason for that was simply the fact that the OEM manufacturerz stopped producing the CD38 and started to deliver a new basic cdplayer, the CD4000. While Herman bought 2,000 CD38 machines to be "tjoebified", Frank had enough time to work on the new OEM CD4000. It took him, apparently by coincidence, 9 months to deliver (t)his new baby. After I discovered that Frank was working on this Njoe Tjoeb, I carefully checked week by week what he was doing and at a certain moment I was asked to join the listeningpanel. I noticed that developing this Njoe Tjoeb was not a matter of just adding the existing tube outputstage, powersupply etc. It really was a matter of a tailormade (partly re-) design. I admire the patience of Frank and everybody else involved in this project. I have never seen so many boards, so many redesigned boards, so many changes of parts (brands and models) in my life. And I have been involved in audio-prototype development (of a wellknown brand) before! How amazing to see that sometimes a standard component gave better results than a so-called audiophile-grade component (and the other way around). As a result I dare to state that the AH! Team has listened and responded very well to the minor critics they received from Tjoeb '98 and '99 owners!

I personally feel that the OEM CD4000 does have better looks than the OEM CD38. But I guess that this is just a matter of taste. More interesting is the look on the inside. It is really extremely well built and it looks very, very "clean". On the left side you find the Philips mechanism (as used in many so-called high-end machines of a much higher price) and direct behind that the brandnew pcboard which is in fact a combination of the standard OEM CD4000 board and the redesigned AH! Njoe Tjoeb outputstage. Next to that the standard OEM transformer (which is still used) and the new AH! toroid transformer. The incoming AC voltage is redirected through a small pcboard to which also the AH! AC NoiseKiller is connected. Absolutely "bjoetifoel" done!

After all I heard during the listeningtests in the showroom of De Hifiwinkel in Eindhoven and after it was finally decided how the Njoe Tjoeb was going to be built, I got the opportunity to listen to my own Njoe Tjoeb at home. Of course I also compared it there against my Tjoeb 99. As an amplifier I own a Krell 300i (yes, with their AC OffsetKiller built in), loudspeakers are Magnepan 1.6 and cables are from Transparent.

Also at home I hear immediately (after running 1 week the burn-in cd of Purist Audio Design) that the AH! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 is a clearly better player (not meaning that my old Tjoebie '99 is now suddenly a bad girl!). I listened with a variety of cd's and you hear immediately that the AH! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 sounds cleaner, more precise, but absolutely without having any digital harshness! I even tend to state that the Njoe Tjoeb is warmer than the Tjoeb '99, although this may sound strange after my remark that the Njoe Tjoeb is more clean, more precise. The Njoe Tjoeb 4000 sounds a little less dark than the Tjoeb '99, which I appreciate. Specially -again- as it still has a mellow, friendly character. Guitarstrings, voices sound very, very open. The low end of the Njoe Tjoeb is tighter than that of the Tjoeb '99 and it also goes deeper down in frequency. This is quite obvious. Sit, listen and follow what the bass is doing. Not just reproducing all the time the same what-we-call-bass, but you hear very easily the difference in frequencies, levels and intensity. The Tjoeb '99 was already a winner in its class in the field of placement of instruments and voices and in the field of spaciousness. Well, the Njoe Tjoeb 4000 holds a new worldrecord (or was it an Olympic record?) here! This all sounds so easy, so free, so precise, so musical, that I dare to state that it is a great new joy in my life to be able to listen to this new royal follow-up of the well-appreciated AH! Tjoeb '99. AH! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 is KING! Hats off guys!"

PS I compared both machines with and without TjoebSjoes. Basically I found under both conditions the same kind of difference in quality between these 2 Tjoeb models, but in both cases the quality level was up with the AH! TjoebSjoes installed. And that's of course the way it was meant to be and it has to be.