After buying new, and more demanding, speakers a friend picked up a used Nait XS2 to replace his Uniti lite. His initial thought was to sell the Uniti and buy a Cd5si cd player and eventually a streamer (his primary source is cd). I believe he can connect the Uniti lite to his XS2 using a 4 pin din to rca which will make the Uniti lite a source for the Xs2. If this works well he could save the cost of a new cd player and have the bonus of keeping a streamer even though he rarely uses it.
My question is related to the quality of the cd player in the Uniti lite vs the cd5si. The Uniti has a lot going on in one box so I’m thinking the stand alone cd player would be a better performer.
Has anyone ever compared the cd player in the one box systems versus the cd5si? Is there an improvement over the stand alone vs the all in ones? There isn’t an option to compare the two given location so reaching out to see if anyone on the forum has experience comparing the cd5si to the all in ones.
Using the ‘Lite as a CD player into the XS2 makes a lot of sense to me. With the new speakers (whatever they are) this should be a nice CD based system. There are a lot of low cost streamer options available now that will open up new areas of listening pleasure. So I would take a look at those next.
I’d be surprised if a CD5Si isn’t a better source than build-in Unit.
That said Naim CD5Si are based on their entrylevel CD5i, not their best hour in my opinion.
A CD5XS walk over it but there might be limited support on these players as they are discontinued ?
Why not look at Rega CD players ?
I’ve had Naim flagship CD players but changed to Rega due to possible service issue.
I’m happy with performance so far.
I have the cd5si for a few weeks, I was septic about its sound quality but I am pleasantly surprised, plugged into a 272 xpsdr it does not blush in front of the streaming in 16/44.1… much better than a cd5i that I had!
Thanks @PerF it’s a shame Naim dropped their better cdp’s. I suggested a Saturn but he prefers to stay in the Naim world. No bad choices with either of these.
@Ian2001@Heathwood I too have the Chord Shawline how are you finding the Shawline?
When I had a Rega system I had the Saturn. In fact, I had at least two Saturn CDP. After a while they stopped initializing the CDs. I gave up. Also i felt it had design issues for those with vision disability. Orange lettering on a dark orange background makes the LCD panel very difficult. I also found the remote rather confusing. My husband had the same issues. Also for the Rega integrated. When our system did not survive home renovations, we moved away from Rega. No point in keeping components we could not operate.
I have four Shawline , on my CD5si, I have their Powerline and interconnect , I think they are a seriously good upgrade for Naim equipment at the budget to medium level. ( I.e Si, Xs, and Unity)
