End of my tether

Can’t disagree with that.

If a CD player needs a service it tends to just stop working, rather than sounding funny. Like the tuners they need servicing only if they conk out. If I were nearer to the Manchester area I’d happily go round, drink tea and scratch my head, but fortunately for Mike I don’t. These problems are a right pain and it’s hard to get to the bottom of why things can suddenly go from sounding fine to sounding rubbish. When you are so disenchanted with something it’s really hard to get to a place where you are willing to give it one final push, before getting the whole lot and chucking it in the bin.

If it needs a service, easier to drive it to Class A in Sheffield, who are a Naim authorised service centre.

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A very big “if”. I honestly don’t see it. As @anon4489532 says, a total cessation is usually the indicator.

I honestly don’t get the persistence of several posters re: the CDP. Go do a search at https://forums.naimaudio.com/forums.php and see what you can find regarding broken CDPs. That forum goes back years. I don’t know what search term might reveal a single thread concerning a broken one but I’ll be damned if I could find one.

Amp amp amp amp amp amp.

My naim Cdi did develop a fault years ago and went back to naim for repair. If memory serves the sound was very thin and very low level and crackly so presumably it was something to do with the amp stage after the DAC. It was blindingly obvious though that something was very wrong just as it was when my NAP250 developed a fault earlier this year. It wasn’t a subtle ‘system is off’ kind of thing, but a very certain ‘something really isn’t right here’ moment. When the NAP250 developed a fault it was characterised by an inability to reproduce sustained bass notes as Mike describes and a chattering static through one channel in the background.

Personally I would check all the cables as a start ideally substituting them with ones borrowed from a fellow user or local dealer. In general though naim isn’t finickity gear, as I said earlier it will deliver 95% of its best no matter where you put it or how you dress the cables. What Mike is describing sounds more fundamental than that so either:

  1. There is a cabling fault
  2. There is a power amp fault like mine (loud/sustained bass notes are most demanding on a power amp)
  3. The speakers or system are a poor match for the room (but Mike says it can sound great)
  4. The whole thing is subjective and in his imagination.

Just my thoughts and I hope you get it sorted Mike. The CD player should be very easy to check - just plug a bluray player in and play some cd’s - if it sounds as bad then it’s not the cd player.

J

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Simplest way to test that is swap to the input used by the TV, which works OK apparently. A fault in the preamp input is possible, though it a simultaneous fault on both channels would seem unlikely.

Lighting issue in work so I’m not setting off yet. Thought I might as well put this to bed.

Don’t have a Blu Ray but DVD sound goes through the Sky box and to the pre as the DVD player is only needed when the TV is on. 25 year old Toshiba. Also still going strong.

Put Kiwanuka on both. Warmer on the DVD player in part as it’s a far far inferior sound. At first I thought bass/mid levels were broadly the same. After doing an A/B a few times I concluded the sound was broadly the same . Burndy or speaker cables. Already know the latter are fine.

On the other hand the CDP seems to be the only thing you haven’t had serviced or repaired. The other alternative is if someone can lend you an XPS or 555PS so you can bypass the 17 year old internal power supply.

If the CDP were just a matter of the mechanism then it would be difficult to understand what all these PSU upgrades are about. Similarly why does Naim recommend a PSU service every around 10-15 years?

Sorry I meant, nap 200 amp

… apart from my CDX2 and CDS3?

Does both mean the DVD player through the Sky box into its normal preamp socket (one af the Auxilliary IIRC), and the CD player through it’s normal input (CD I guess)? And does that “broadly the same” mean bad, as your complaint in this thread, or now good, as your assessment of the TV?

If the latter, then that suggests the issue has resolved itself, pointing to an intermittent fault (possibility same as above). But as you didn’t say all is now good, I assume not…

So I am moved to wonder if the apparently better sound of the TV through the same Sky box and amp input is simply because the telly’s sound character is so different that the negatives you hear with CD and DVD simply don’t show up (as one simplistic example, if the TV only outputs in the now diminished part of the frequency spectrum, then that being attenuated somewhere in the system would simply be compensated by playing at a slightly higher volume setting, and the sound character would remain much the same). Given that all has been fine with the system, this points to some common fault, and one that affects both channels, suggesting pre or power amp or associated power supply or Burndy. And given the connection-resetting effect a few months ago that you described, it might yet be as simple as a connector fault, on a cable or the box socket.

Mike,

If you are anywhere in SW England, SE Wales or the SW Midlands, and you are willing, I can come to your place and bring a load of diagnostic equipment to help sort you out.

Let me know if are able and want to take up this offer and we can exchange e-mails and arrange a date.

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How about near Manchester, which is where Mike lives?

You are a complete champion good Sir, the world needs more people like you.

Ma’am

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Let’s face it, considering the OP couldn’t pull down his own gear as he’s “At the end of his tether”, then a community of good folk have posted hundreds of replies to try to help and a complete stranger offers to spend his time and his expensive equipment to call around to his pad to diagnose the issue, WoW what a champion.

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Her time

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and her expensive equipment…,

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I came across this by chance - and oh the memories. Twenty years ago I too was a Naim zealot, always after the better cable and power chord, the latest power supply, the top CD player and then Naim DAC. I was active on the forum, quick to scorch anybody who dared to criticize Naim.
Now I wonder what on earth I was thinking - all that money into a system that was indeed very good, but by definition blocked my access to anything else (had to be DIN, not RCA), and always disappointed me slightly because it was supposed to be flawless.
One day I just quit, cold-turkey. Sold it all. I now have a modest system with one lingering bow to Naim - Focal speakers - and a budget NAD amp. Every day I get far more than I ever expected from this system. With Naim, good as it was, I never got what I expected, because I’d spent so much and tinkered so much and it was supposed to be perfection.
So, I read this with full understanding - and some pity, too, for the cultist thinking that can creep in. There are other worlds.

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