13 years ago I sold my (then already 9 years old) CD5 to the father of a coworker, mainly to finance a Linn Akurate DSM.
Now his father has sadly passed away and I bought the CD5 back, for sentimental reasons and curious to know how a Naim source sounded in my current setup, active and with Space Optimization.
And it’s better than I remembered. Much better actually. Still not the width and depth of a hires source, but transparent, confident and very rhythmic.
I bought a CDX2 to replace my CD5. And when I did, there was a bit of a controversy that the CD5 was better musically. My best friend wanted to buy the CD5 from me and I let him do a demo. I didn’t want him to be disappointed. He ended up preferring the CD5.
I loved my CD5, especially when I added a Flatcap 2. When I came to replace it with a CDX I was initially rather disappointed. The lovely widescreen and slightly euphonic sound of the CD5/FC2 was replaced with a far more focussed sound and tighter bass that initially I found just not as nice to listen to. I did though begin to appreciate that the CDX was digging out more information off the disc, but it wasn’t until I quickly moved on to a CDS2 (and then on to a CDS3) that I really felt things had properly improved.
I owned one of these for about 20 years, I added a Flatcap 2 after about a year which just made everything even better. I distinctly remember auditioning the CD5 alongside the Arcam and Musical Fidelity players of the day and the Naim just sounded more real to me. I owned the very first Arcam FMJ amp at the time and was just convinced an Arcam CD Player would be a better fit before listening, I had never really heard of Naim before this audition, the ability to upgrade the player just made the buy an even better proposition. I later used a Hi Cap on this player before getting the upgrade bug moving to a CDS 3 XPS then PS555 and now CD555 with dual PS555DRS, this is the pinnacle for me in CD playback, fingers crossed I get the same lasting value as the CD5.
A CD5 was my second Naim source after a CD3.5. It was about 18 years ago coming to live here. My recollection of my impressions when I then moved to a CDX2, then added an XPS, then moved to a CDS3 are exactly the same, and also explain why I now like my Nait5/FC2 so much .
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