Does anybody know if Naim is likely to produce a CD Transport?
Knowing that repairs to legacy CD players are going to be tough and the new trade in scheme announced. I hope that Naim will at least consider building a transport. I still like spinning the old silver disc and I know you carnt stop progress. Many people have large CD collections and you can buy pre-loved CDs very cheaply so there is still life in the old format.
If Naim can produce a high quality record deck (for a niche market) then why not a transport?
My money would be no, don’t think they have intention in producing a new player or transport. Shame but that’s what happens when your companies run by bean counters.
Such as what - streamers? Office Hard Disks with $$$$ ethernet cables and switches? The only thing you can’t stop is the time it takes for your mind to decide you can’t live without the new technology once it has hit the first page of a new thread.
I too love to spin CDs. The world is still full of good players and transports. Be thankful Naim doesn’t come out with a flagship CD transport to sit besides the Solstice and the Statement…
it is a shame - certainly as CD has been having a revival in recent years - interestingly I hear with people new to the format… and popular with music enthusiasts and grass roots enthusiasts and is associated as a format which is more equal or fair to artists which seems to be a growing narrative with music - especially in the UK. You go to a gig these days and look at the ‘merch’ - there will nearly always be new CDs available.
Luckily there are new CD players with new style CDMs to choose from elsewhere (across a range of budgets) - including CD transports with USB and SPDIF output.
And CD appears to becoming trendy again for some… a good friend of mine has just paid, in my opinion, silly money for a B&O factory refurbished vintage (1990s) multi CD BeoSound 9000 player… it certainly looks the part mounted on the wall and when exchanging CDs - and sounds rather good too… I understand the refurb included fitting a new laser to the CDM
Edit - if you read some of the history and quotes from David Lewis - they do resonate with some of the quotes you have heard from Julian Vereker - they look to have been perhaps quite similar people or at least held similar views of the world… both were icons in the companies they founded and the companies appear like they have similar cultures… with Naim perhaps feeling originally the more ‘organic’ of the two.
well yes - vinyl has become a bit of a fashion accessory now for many (some people even buy vinyl and have nothing to play it on)… and yes the vinyl took several years to get to this state - after being initially revived by the music enthusiast. CD is now at that enthusiast level now. Its probably also fair to say mass market CD playing devices probably sound more appealing now than say the mass market devices of 20 years ago… tech has moved on
How so? I have some of my music on the stream services - I dot see who listens to what - the only things I see is which streaming service providers have streamed my music… I can also see who has sold downloads of my music.
I also have a Meridian 200 series CD player which is over 25 years old and it still functions as it did when it was new. It was built like a tank and was very highly regarded back in the day.
Me too. Love the Meridian and it gives great results with the Naim DAC, indeed so far the best of all the many old CD transports I’ve tried with the DAC.
Best of all, RC5 remote control protocol means it can be controlled by the Naim RC handset.
Yes it was a shame with the Gen 2 streamers the automation was trimmed to not support Naim CD automation. I used to really like that on my NDX - I could control my CDX2 including skipping tracks etc from the Naim app via my NDX. Sadly not now supported on the NDX2…
Developed and sold by a company (Stream Unlimited Optical Storage) with links to StreamUnlimited, the folks who do the NP800 streaming board for Naim, IIUC. At the least they sell themselves on the fact they employ a bunch of ex Phillips employees
I abandoned CD a few years ago in favour of streaming from a Melco. It suits me much better - I love just being able to select tracks on an iPad and not to have to keep getting up and down to change discs. We also have a Moon CD transport which my wife uses as she dislikes using the Melco and likes having physical discs to play in her collection.
Having said that I did like CD players and I was a very late adopter of streaming. I honestly can’t see CD making a big comeback in a similar way to vinyl though. But who knows? I didn’t see a vinyl revival coming either.
I do think it’s easier to get a good performance from CD in terms of the system infrastructure. Streaming seems ultra sensitive to things like noise in a way that I have never been aware of with CD. I’ve spent a small fortune taking steps to address this in my set up which I’m not sure I ever would have done had I still been using a CD player or transport/DAC. Sometimes I do think I would have been better just investing all that money in a really top-class CD transport or player. But these do seem to be rather thin on the ground now and then there’s the question of product life in terms of CD mechanism availability. One must move with the times I feel.
The only thing you can’t stop is the time it takes for your mind to decide you can’t live without the new technology once it has hit the first page of a new thread.
