CDS3 is Toast

I am pretty sure that they will not allow any hand deliveries by customers to Salisbury. Maybe during Covid they did, but not for many years before Covid and not now.

Anyway if you can persuade them, good on you. No doubt they can vary their own rules if they want to.

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Another possibility, do a factory visit and bring your Naim box in a suitcase. When the visit arrives at the service/ repair department, let the suitcase there. :joy:

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In the specific case of CD players, I think it’s a very regrettable policy.

On the one hand, if you email Naim directly to ask for their service interval recommendation for a CD player, they say 8-10 years (suspiciously identical to what they recommend for everything else, AFAIK, but that’s a different debate).

Via a number of other information outlets, not least this forum, their slightly-less-official advice is not to send in functioning CD players for routine servicing due to the risk of inadvertent damage in transit, which I think is probably wise but contradicts the advice above.

Allowing pre-booked drop-offs at the factory for CD players only for those of us able to would square this particular circle. They’d also make a little money from servicing items that otherwise wouldn’t make it to Salisbury!

Mark

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I think that Linn made the right decision in -2017 they offered trade in value for CD players against new products “To adapt to this changing hi-fi landscape, Linn is ending service support for their CD players. This move comes eight years after Linn made the
decision to cease production on CD devices.”

Thread deviation but does anyone know what mechanisms Vitus use in their transports? They look mighty good.

quote

Philips CD Pro 2LF (significantly modified by VA)

Best

Martin

Thank you.

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I’m now taking the view that as there is little 2nd hand or trade in value in my CDS3 I might as well as continue with it particularly as it just sounds sublime and I’ll deal with it when it next falters. The solution will likely be any number of good 2nd hand deals. In the flea pit right now there is vintage Meridian MCD Pro for £399, that would do nicely.

I hope it’s a long time until you have to decide.

By then, you may have weakened and have a streamer, in which case a CD Transport like excellent Audiolabs plugged into a streamer becomes another good option.

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I am familiar with both players in my system, and I have known them for many years. Each player possesses a distinctive sound signature.

I own both the CDS2 and CD555 CD players, as well as the ND555. While the CD555 and ND555 share a similar tonality, the CD555 offers improved grip, control, and separation. Additionally, instruments sound more natural when played through the CD555. I have also the chord switch and chord Ethernet cables.
The ND555 is convenient :slight_smile:

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There’s a CD555 apparently going for ‘only’ £6K on eBay. If I wanted a CD player to replace my (great) CDS2….

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Sound is one thing musicality is another,I can´t stand the artificial sound of CD players, for me ripped CD´s thru a streamer is so much more musical satisfying.

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All music is artificial, surely.

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Yes but interpolating Cd players makes it even more artificial,in my opinion.

Your argument over the supremacy of streaming over CD has now been reduced to a petty dispute over whose artificial grass is more genuine. Simply dismissing one format over another does not lend credibility to the debate.

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Credibility…if you can’t hear the difference,then good for you.I only express my opinion .
And for even less artificial musical experience I recommend analogue FM radio or Vinyl.

How many psus are you using on them?

Many of you have younger or better-treated ears than mine. I am also easily swayed by my expectations and prejudices, which you may not be.

Having said that, I would still suggest periodically checking yourself. If 3 or 4 runs of 20 minutes (say) leave you unable to tell whether you are hearing an LP with no surface noise or a CD, or a played CD or a ripped CD, or a played CD and Qobuz, that info can be useful.

Of course, the hardware needs to be comparably good, though that describes many systems owned by people here. We found that adding a PS to the streamer changed it from easy to spot to hard to spot, for example.

For me and for some patients friends, on some albums we could easily tell which was which and on others we couldn’t. On some albums, we had a consistent preference and on some we didn’t. Knowing (for example) that it is worth the small effort of playing the LP on this album but that it is not on any of those albums can be quite liberating.

It can also give extra ammunition or extra certainty in conversations like this.

If you have not tried for a while, why not give it a go? My guess is that a player as good as a CDS3 will be easy to spot and hard to give up, but it is not much effort to check.

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I had both CDS3 and CD555 last year and compared them to a NDS with ripped CD’s on a USB stick,for me the NDS was much better musically .