CD and the future

He says he has a 200DR…

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Good point, sorry, I’ll read more carefully next time. 282 is a fantastic pre, I’ve heard it sound great with a 200DR.

Once you get your ND5 you can buy a £50 Blu Ray player and use that as a transport until all your CDs find their rightful home in the loft or garage. You would have to spend a lot to get a better DAC than an NDX5.

Yes I’m UK based. Dot between Manchester and Preston. The only Naim dealership T Audio shut it’s doors last week.

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One thing to be aware of is that essentially a ripped cd played via nice dac is absolutely the same (or better) as if played via stand alone CD player. Much more comfortable as well.

If I can find space for them. At the moment my loft space is taken up primarily with 10 boxes of Linn units and 5 of MF units plus lots of other hi fi stuff. I’ve enough to open my own shop I think. I’d have my B&W CDM9NTs up there too if I had the strength to lift them up there. Brilliant as they are I’d like to see the back of them. I think they weigh 4 stone each.

Sweeping statement.

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Sell some of the kit, loads of space for CDs and spare cash for more CDs. :grinning:
(This is mainly tongue in cheek, but also reflects my experience, the ability to stream on Tidal or other to check music out and also if you stay here The What Are You Listening To thread have a scary effect. When I ripped all my CDs 3 years ago I had about 1,300, when I ran a script on my NAS a couple of months ago I had exactly 2,000. And that has gone up, I ripped 6 yesterday alone.)

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Eoink. I get what you’re saying. I’ve temporarily mothballed all my Linn stuff to move to Naim. I do have a Linn streamer but that will possibly go. As soon as I think I have a better set up and the musical quality is what I want then the Linn stuff is going. I’m not quite there yet. I have other amps and stuff that I’ll hang on to before the Linn.

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Sorry, I should have said welcome aboard earlier. It’s a pretty nice place to hang out virtually. And enjoy the music.

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It does slightly irk me though because I’ve really looked after my Linn system (as with all my stuff). It’s absolutely pristine and I know I’ll never get the value of its worth. I won’t let it go (even then it will be a big deal) until I’m happy I have something that is better.

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Each to their own. The social media pages are full of people with server/network/software issues - not saying this is the norm, but for me selecting a disc from my collection, inserting it into the player and listening is an integral part of enjoying the music. I use Spotify/iPad/Arcam Bluetooth for convenient playlists and to ‘audition’ artists and albums, but I am still committed to the physical form as a whole package of art.
Regarding the OP the original CD5 is still a wonderful player, some would say better than the ‘i’ and ‘si’ variants, the only reason mine will be up for a new home soon is the fault of a CDS3…

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I hear what you are saying. There is something about streamed music that is slightly uncomfortable when you are listening to it. It’s connected to a service that can be flakey. When you slot in a CD and play it then it is there, uninterrupted and ‘in the room’. No background worries if it’s suddenly going to trip out. That’s the one reason I always want an old school CD source to listen to.

Very true!! I reckon my listening is 80% CD, 15% vinyl, 5% streaming. I have CDs I’ve owned for over 30 years that are still as good as new, and quality used discs nowadays can be had for literally a few pence… The technology behind streaming high quality music would’ve been unfathomable 10 years ago, but it still can’t replicate feeling the ink on the inlay book/gatefold sleeve while you listen…

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I think that for most of us here (being a bit presumptuous in the assumption) streaming isn’t yet the cloud/Internet version. I have two NAS drives on my home network, with >2,000 albums on them, mostly ripped CDs and a couple of hundred downloaded hi-res. That is what I stream, Tidal is used to check out stuff, if I love it I buy it.

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The Linn stuff is really good. I would keep using it.

FWIW I think there are several British companies that make outstanding products I could happily listen to music on all day. Linn and Naim are two such. I have been lucky in having great service from both. I use a Chord CDP and unless it breaks, I shall keep doing so until the end of my days: it’s wonderful.

Yes I do have a streaming system, but playing vinyl or CD still has the edge.

The Karik/Numerik was superb. Not sure I’d put it in CDS territory as soneone mentioned, but I’d certainly hang on to it… for now.

When the Karik dies, I’d be more inclined to just get a decent transport and not go wild. A TEAC or something feeding the digital input on a Naim streamer will get you where you need to be while your library is ripped and you get a handle on streaming.

If you’re not convinced you’ll get success down a streaming route, then use the Karik until it dies and “upgrade” to any of the very fine non Naim/Linn CD players on the market. Loads of makers still make them at that level and well beyond.

Maybe streaming online, but not from one’s own store - at least! I have never had anything remotely flaky playing from my own store - unlike playing from CD where the occasional disk would skip, or trigger the error correction fill-in, and after a decade of heavy use the mechanism would deteriorate sufficiently to cause frequent skips… Streaming from own store is simply a matter of selecting and hitting ‘play’. And you can queue multiple albums if you want, and if you have a track on an album you really don’t like, not only can you skip it, but you can choose to delete it. And if you are the sort of person that likes music mixed up, you can queue the tracks in an album in a different order, or queue individual tracks from different albums, even create a playlist to repeat the same selection another time. If you like the physical media there is nothing to stop you having the CD case with contents out when you play - otherwse you can put them away and free up space in the music room.

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Yes IB it was the streamed off the internet that I was specifically talking about (Spotify, Qobus, Tidal). I never have problems from my servers as they are all hardwired onto the network.

I only stream online to listen new things, not for any serious listening, and I don’t subscribe to any provider. My reasoning is multiple, the one relevant to this thread being that sound quality even with the best of sources is at risk of compromise, and, worse, has risk of interruptions affecting enjoyment of play.

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