System sounded wonderful before. Put the 500 really opened everything up and took it to a whole new level
Yes emotion, just been listening to Chris de Burghs- Snows of New York, fantastic song.
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Whilst improving my system over the decades, from a budget system with a build cost equivalent to about £1K today to my current one current replacement value of the order of £40-£50k, I can’t say my emotional connection with the music has changed. It sounds better, I can hear and appreciate things I couldn’t before - but the emotion in music is nothing to do with sound quality, but the music itself. My greatest ever emotional connection was at a live opera performance tears streaming down my face in public- though playing the same music at home gets me pretty close, and tge tears still flow. And I feel it - though not necessarily moved to tears! - whenever I play good music. What varies, of course, is the emotion in different music, some much more than others.
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Emotion when listening to music has nothing in common with the cost involved in our system. However we are a lot, like me, to be addicted by the upgraditis. It can increase our emotion as direct experience, but not always, or in the first days, and it’s not mandatory.
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Hifi as a hobby has its own challenges and rewards, and undoubtedly some aspect of emotion is involved. Of course, the degree, and what aspects appeal to us as individuals, can vary considerably.
I would say it conveys emotion in a way I actually didn´t think possible a few years ago. My system today is ,many times, better than any system owned before, when it comes to exactly that, conveying emotion. The first piece of equipment that made me feel a small piece of this was my then Supernait. The system today is massively better in every aspect and by being that, doesn´t have to struggle to get to the emotional core.
If I try an upgrade and it makes the emotional connection less, it´s out.
Well get the 552
That would be a keeper
David
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That’s very true. Just when you thought it sounded good the 552 comes along. For me the SQ and feel from 552 brought more feeling to the music
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While I can’t say that my system creates emotion, if the emotion is present in the music, it does a fair job of conveying it. But whether or not I’ll fully respond to it is a different question, subject to many variables outside my control. Sometimes I’ll hear something on my car radio that will stop me in my tracks as I’m driving my son to school and excitedly play it on the big rig later, only for it to fall relatively flat.
I would love it if each successive upgrade to my system brought a corresponding increase in its ability to evoke an emotional response - wouldn’t that be a nice additional justification for the expense and trouble? - but I can’t say that this is true. The emotional component of music is too elusive to be captured that way.
Maybe it doesn’t help that I nearly always listen to my system in a planned, premeditated fashion. But when the stars align and I happen to be in the right frame of mind when I sit down, that’s a special experience.
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Unfortunately, mine doesn’t bring the emotional impact at a suitable level. It’s a good system, suited for a “critical” approach of the music (detailed, clear…etc.) But it lacks the warm / engaging factors that makes the music palpable. Maybe it’s the speakers (B&W 702 Signature).
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Agree. The 552 adds to music like no other naim component has for me. It’s magic 
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Gosh, yes.
It is sad that your system doesn’t engage you - how did you end up with it?
Speakers more than anything set the sound character - and when I tried the B&W 802 it didn’t grab me - so maybe that’s the place to try auditioning. But the emotional content of music should get to you even with poor sound quality, as several have suggested - maybe you’re listening to the wrong music!
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Or historically listening to the system more than the music.
The answer is YES and it has been doing so, every step of the way, over the last 40+ years!
Richard
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A somewhat cynical response if I may so say frenchrooster. An appreciation of music is about people, not ‘an inanimate collection of electronic components’. I should have observed that the interaction in music is between the composer, the artist and the listener. In a room upstairs, I have a mini system that cost me £99. I can still get that emotional connection on that system. Perhaps I have wasted a whole lot of money investing in a Naim Audio system? At the right time, I find listening to my £99 system more enjoyable that the Naim Audio system.
If it gets too emotional you can always press the “pause” button.
Which, is what you can’t definitely do when getting emotional listening to live music with lots of other people sharing the same experience.
My system doesn’t necessarily create emotions, more recreates and represents any emotions in the recording.
I thought this was pretty much FR’s point so I don’t think he was being cynical. It’s not about the boxes per se, or rather, it’s how the boxes facilitate that relationship. Of course music over a ‘lesser box’ can still awake our relationship and/or instil interest. I’ll sing along with joy to, say, The Doors on a portable radio, but I’ll bet my stereo enables that feeling to reach almost awe. And such.
A bit cynical, but essentially some humour. For me it’s not the system but the music that creates emotion. The system has just to allow the intended music to come through. It doesn’t have to be expensive. As soon as you are connected to the music and your brain is disconnected, you can feel the emotion.
Listening to music IS being emotionally involved. It’s the main reason .
It’s for me so evident that I finally see no real reason to this thread existence. So sorry to be cynical.
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Very much i hear what the artist is feeling