Thanks gthack, yes I’ve been very impressed with the XS2 since the day I bought it, I’m of the opinion it punches well above its weight.
Indeed I should try to arrange a demo, of the qutest at least, the ndac I’d have to take a punt on if I went that way.
I love my vinyl and love the idea of the ease and amount of new music available via streaming but I also think there’s plenty of life left in the CD format yet.
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Naim UK full serviced my CDS3 in July 2018 including a new drive and laser block and Ebay sellers offer new blocks for Naim players.
Yes but there is if I understand correctly doubt as to their authenticity.
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It was serviceable then, but later during the pandemic there were no mechs at Naim and they could not replace them. Very recently they found some and the CDS3 and CDX2 are currently eligible for service with mech exchange again.
As Richard advised many times during the lack of mechs, the ones on eBay are of questionable quality and would likely be rejected by Naim’s quality checks.
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I had my CDS 3 serviced by NAIM in 2013. The transport failed again in mid 2020 and I was told it could no longer be serviced. I went through the normal stages of grief, denial, anger and finally acceptance that there would never be another CD player equal to my beloved CDS 3, I added an NDX 2 to my system and thought “wow, this is pretty good!”. But what happens if the internet goes down, I’m stuck with no music. I started looking for a CD transport that I could run through the NDX 2. I found a transport made by Pro-Ject, the turntable folks. I run it through the NDX 2, and along with its optional power supply, is BETTER than my CDS 3. It’s pretty amazing, there’s a sense of immediacy that makes me look a the speakers and ask “where did THAT come from?. So I’m set for the inevitable internet outages.
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Since you ask…(!)
With streaming from one’s own store of music ripped from CD or vinyl, or downloaded:
- Potentially better sound quality through absence of read errors and associated error correction, and no annoying skips due to faulty or dirty disks.
- Potentially better sound quality as one can download higher resolution recordings.
- No misplaced CDs whether put in wrong place or wrong CD in the case.
- Continuous play of music longer than 70 minutes - a particular benefit to opera lovers.
- Easy browsing of one’s collection, even while sitting listening, and selection of the next piece of music without getting up. (Some may regard the lack of getting up to be negative - but there is nothing to stop you getting up.)
- Negligible storage space required in, or readily accessible from, the music room, with all one’s music in a very small box - and a copy in another little box so that in event of disaster like fire the loss of all one’s precious, even impossible to replace, music is unlikely. However if one wants to retain the CDs on shelves in the listening room to take out and browse the insert while playing there is absolutely nothing to stop that, simply the space saving benefit is negated.
- If desired tracks can be deleted, track order rearranged, or ‘playlists’ of particular music created.
No negatives there.
For online streaming there are some differences, the positive one being a vast resource of music for very easy finding of new things to play, at a fraction of the cost of buying - perhaps a particular benefit to people not already having a good size collection. The negatives compared to playing from one’s own store are: i) A requirement to pay a monthly subscription to be able to play music. ii) A poor internet connection, or very limited bandwidth, can affect playing - this cancels the second bullet above. iii) Changes to catalogues and licences can make music disappear, whether just moved somewhere else or deleted - this cancels the third bullet above.
Many people combine both types of streaming.
However, setting up streaming in the first place, whether from one’s own store or online, is more complicated and takes more effort than simply buying a box and connecting it, and understandably some people don’t want to bother. Whilst I found no problems myself, others sometimes do. Reading queries on this forum it seems to me that dealers could and should do more to provide an ‘oven ready’ solution for anyone not network/computer savvy. That said, products like the Uniti Core, Melco, Innuos Zen/ith etc potentially provide a simple solution to own-store streaming as they can be connected direct to a DAC, with no requirement for a network to play music.
Thanks IB
Yes I get all that and have for some time
You say “potentially” better sound quality re streaming
By saying that, it goes to the heart of my concern. It’s not clear cut , if it was I’d be there
Having said that I have ripped all my CDs into the CORE and from time to time ( in my other home) I use for convenience , so I get that point.
To me it’s got to be about a much improved sound quality experience over CD’s.
Cheers
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Naim can repair the CDS3. Check with your distributor/Naim. Mine sounds great with the new laser mech.
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Hi Bevo,
If the CD and player are in good condition, then all else being equal - in particular same DAC - then the sound quality of a rip vs CD, or a downloaded 16/44 copy from the same mastering, should be absolutely identical. The ‘potential’ was because sometimes CDs are imperfect, and as they get older it is not uncommon for CD mechanisms to start to misread - I certainly had that with my two CD players, both causing significant reads by about 10 years old (with my usage of course), and maybe they were increasingly doing that but less obviously for a while before it became annoying.
Then of course there are higher resolutions that can be downloaded: some people report noticing a night and day difference - but what is major to one person is a minor difference to another. I don’t notice a huge difference - sometimes none, and sometimes a slight lift in performance in a way I can’t describe, but I recognise the description of the replay having a bit more ‘air’, which seems to be the concensus impression. All comparisons of course are only relevant where the CD version and hi res are from the same master.
For me, I chose to replace my last dying CD player with a streamer simply because it seemed to be the future of music replay, so made more sense, especially as I had then only recently ripped all my vinyl to make into CDs (to avoid further deterioration, while removing a consumable cost of cartridge replacement), and had all the .wav files on hard disk. I didn’t really give much if any thought to potential benefits, but very soon realised them and haven’t looked back. The only negative of a streaming-only system is if someone brings round a CD to play, or I get a new one, I have to spend a few minutes ripping before being able to play - of course, some systems have a built-in CD drive with the option of playing a CD as well as or instead of ripping it, removing that slight negative.
Thanks IB
I get it
Hi @Bevo and @Innocent_Bystander in particular - does this topic fit into the category of ‘Every Generalisation Is Dangerous’?
I have lots of CDs where there is only one version on Qobuz/ Tidal, sometimes HR and sometimes not. I have ripped my CDs via a Core. I stream via NDX2/ XPS2 and play CDs on a CDS2 (great player, but sadly not eternal).
Comparing 3 formats on multiple bits of music over months made clear to my ears that: -
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Some music was considerably better on CD or rip than any streamed version I could find.
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Some music was considerably better on a HR stream from (say) Qobuz than on my CD.
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I have found no music that sounds materially better or worse if ripped/ served versus played on the CD.
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There are a very few CDs that play on my CDS2 but refuse to be ripped (too many errors), but none of them sounded great anyway.
I have recent had a hifi salesman explain why CD was always superior if one uses the right CD player. I have also seen the argument that a rip avoids reading errors and so can only be better than the CD, and had people explain that that is what they hear.
Listening evidence thusfar suggests to me that (a) it is not as simple as A best B, and (b) the differences here are jolly small - this is not RP3 versus LP12 or Atom (as streamer) versus NDX2/ XPS2.
Does that look about right to you all?
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Makes total sense to me at least. Your case #1 must be considered in the context of
even if the streaming version is not hires but 16/44.1, it can still be mastered differently for streaming
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Hi - I experienced this with a handful of CD’s - my workaround was to make a CDR copy via Exact Audio Copy (no doubt others would work) and the copies would then rip in 100% of cases.
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Yes, as I said in an earlier post (or was it in the other current thread?), i haven’t noticed any difference myself between CD and a CD rip (though as my CD player was on the way out I wasn’t doing direct comparisons, hence my use of the word ‘potential’, as I suspect only evident with poor CDs. Downloaded 16/44 (from same master) I would expect also identical, but haven’t bothered trying to compare.
As for CD played direct possibly sounding better than a rip, I note that dealer’s talk of “the right CD player”. The moment you use different DACs for CD and streaming any difference is far more likely to be due to that. And of course cabling might be significant as some DACs are vulnerable to RF interference.
I am glad you notice how I put the dealer’s comment!
More important, that’s a good point on cables and RF for DACs - thanks.
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Yep
Every time I see a beautiful pic of the Linn CDP, I shed a tear for selling my Linn Unidisk 1.1 dynamik. I still can’t believe I did that and it’s been 2 years.
But your unit looks great and I know it sounds wonderful. Enjoy!
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last year I bought a spare block with wire harness for my CD5XS on ebay - its got a Philips label stating VAM 1202/12 etc. It appears to be identical to the stock block in my CD5XS [2017].
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I think its Naim that has been fuzzy and misdirected and questionable or random in many of its marketing decisions in the last decade or so. It had established itself as a power in the CD market. It threw most of that away and now sells the CD5si, which has alot of competition, and the uber expensive 555 player.
In the December 2019 Nintronics Naim Classic upgrade path demonstration it is stated that Naim consider the Unity Core to be their CD player
