Life After Naim

Hi-Fi Corner
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@realdpg,

my list - emulating the attitude of BobTheBuilder’s’ - was very obviously random: I have changed without a direction - and buying 90% second hand: financial side is an issue for me, or at least it is compared to that of some of the members here, who kill 15 lazy minutes asking the forum whether they should add a second, brand new 555PS to their 555PS compatible brand new 555 source - but rather moved by curiosity, restlessness, by a very short sound addiction span which made me need a different voice after a few weeks. In search of peace of mind, perhaps, which a Naim is inherently designed to deny to you. Observing the company’s progression in 40 years, its marketing and engineering strategies with care, admiration but from a distance makes it clear. Naim is made for wanting more Naim. Like TV and alcohol. With all due respect.

In my good days I have written pages and pages here, contributing with my ideas about how we listen to the music or to the gear, until I realized that my opinions weren’t worth a cent more than a million others, so I stopped. I bought the SN1 three times because… I liked it. I have always liked it more than the 2, and if you had read my post accurately you’d understand why. Your right not to agree, but with its little flaws - which I could enumerate ad nauseam, but don’t want to fall back in the old habit of writing extensively just to discover that I have only spent 20 minutes in front of a luminous screen - I have always found the SN1 idiomatically Naim, while the 2 was already a bit ‘soft’ for me, with more attention to detail and soundstage than to that mild ‘kick in the face’ that Vereker’s designs had, and which - most of the times, with most of the music - made Naim irreplaceable. The 3 is a wonderful integrated, retaining a good number of Naim’s house qualities but there are other amps with a similar ‘perfect’ voice. And most - safe a few attentive owners - have systematically underrated the 1’s onboard DAC. More, when the 3 was released I had the NAIT XS2, which made my S-400s sound the best in my room, and felt no need to add watts.

Then I bought the American amp by the designer that opus has so blatantly ignored - BTW, @opus, I thought that Saul Marantz died 23 years ago or are they keeping him still at work with a puppet animated by pins in Haiti? And you forgot Edison - and now I am experiencing something different.

Apologizing for the length of the reply, yesterday I brought my MacBook Pro with all my AIFF-encoded music to my dealer’s, and LAN connected it to their network as a server. Then I listened to some favorite tracks on a Star/Harbeth 30.2 combo. Very good - but now I have taken another road. And if one day I was asked, gun at the temple, to go back to Naim, which I’d have no problem doing, and I still had the Heresys, I’d probably be happy with a fourth SN1, if Naim solved the issue of the excessive input gain that the Stereophile technical test underlined and that made the user keep the volume pot around 8:30, a very improper and wrong use of a potentiometer.

Best,
Max

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119

Yes, EAR pre and Naim power; not the other way round = 868 & 250.

I then moved to a SS Class A and then the 534, which I used for over a decade. I was VERY tempted by a SS EAR that is on sale via a delaer and even had a chat with him, but that was when I was still looking for a Focal replacement …and when I tried the SBLs they worked so well with the old 250, equaled the 534 for the first time, that I had to re-evaluate.

In truth I had to keep the 534 on a high shelf, and it weighs 22Kgs. As I am entering my sixth decade I thought it was time to find a different way to lift weights! My eldest does an excellent impression of me when she was helping me a few years ago and the amp shifted unexpectedly; all ended well but the language was very blue.

M

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121

Something that I have never been sure about with valve amps is to do with the frequency response of transformers. AIUI transformers are not linear with regard to frequency. Is that something that has been fixed in some way?

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I haven’t got on with any of the Sonus Faber speakers I have heard. I so wanted to like them, they are beautiful to look at and very well engineered but they seem to suck the “joie de vivre” out of music. Like a gifted musician playing because he has to, rather than because he wants to.

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123

:rofl:

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I loved CB, didn’t enjoy Olive and at that point looked elsewhere, in the meantime Naim introduced the Classic - which is FAR more to my taste.

There is a wide range of excellent products, trying to get some equipment that works well in your room and to your taste is not a simple problem IME.

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Hi Massimo, by no means I refuse to agree with you or try to get into a confrontation, it was a simple question, given the fact that I own the second generation and as much as i like it, I do not see myself buying another one, at least not in the next 10-15 years. I have not heard either the first or the third one, so cannot speak comparatively.

Here I slightly disagree, respect your views, but you cannot blame a company for the hierarchy of its products. I am perfectly comfortable with what I have now, if someday I wake up with a desire to climb up the ladder, I might do, but that applies to all products in a consumer world, TVs, Cars, kitchen furniture… if funds allow inevitably.

All the best

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Please quote me properly:

‘moved by curiosity, restlessness, by a very short sound addiction span’

Then laugh at leisure,
M.

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Although I have no doubts the SN1 possessing the traits which you have aptly described will sound better than the SN2 in some cases, personally I feel the loudspeakers play a huge role in determining the result or final outcome, based on my recent experience. The more forward, dynamic and/or upfront amp with a lit and vibrant presentation may be too much of a good thing when matched with certain speakers.

This post doesn’t serve the purpose of nullifying your experience or disagreeing with what you have said. It’s just an experience which I have gone through recently when I matched the 282/HCDR/250DR with a pair of speakers and expected great results. The outcome is unexpected.

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I recognise my former self in your words Max. However, I settled in 2004 on my electronics and CD player. Apart from servicing it will remain unchanged. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Not sure if I grew up or just ran out of money but there you go. Love my system, it ain’t changing anytime soon.

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129

My second system is Densen from literally their “golden” era, probably the same CD player you mention, mine a 400+, B100 integrated used most the time as a pre (used to bi-amp when I had B&W 805n’s) and B300 power amp. When CD player last gave up bought a Rega Apollo CDP (current version), decided to get the CD player repaired. Still manages to sound different from about every CD player I’ve ever heard. My Naim and Densen setups have different presentations, but both are very musical. I just find so many speakers today manage to strip the musicality out and instead get a text book impressive “hi-fi” rendition, which whilst short term might have turned the ear but longer term leads to playing less and less music, instead picking out impressive recordings. Recently had the Neat Ministra’s on dem and tried in both setups, went back to the dealer, just didn’t do it for me.

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130

Max thank you for your answers so well thought out.
It’s a fine thing to have both the tenacity and enough love of music to seek out the right electronics of whatever brand to play the music we love in a way that we enjoy.

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I am not Particularly looking forward to the time I need to crate up my Karan integrated for a service. At more than 30k weight and bulky.
Naim has a somewhat covetable form factor that’s relatively easy to manoeuvre for those able to take away for a trip to the heartlands.

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I know exactly what you mean. The difference is I gave in to the beauty of the speakers. And they were really very nice, right down to the outrigger feet. I got bored with the music. It is not the system. was just not my sound.

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134

:sweat_smile:
Probably why you see alot of valve gear simply on the floor.

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I thought it looked superb, my wife was not so impressed :wink:

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Hi,

Sorry for the late reply, im still getting used to this platform.
Im not sure how they measure but i know the OT’s he uses are bespoke and according to reviewers he seems to have solved the issues that other designs face when it comes to sound. But i would have to hear it before making any claims though.

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@Innocent_Bystander I noticed that you dipped your toes into this thread but haven’t told us anything about your life after naim, and why you took the path you did?

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Oops, I’ve been Naimed!

Mine’s not an exciting tale, because I only had a Naim for about 2 years, in the middle of that period reaching the exalted height of two black boxes for just a month before reverting to one…

I recall being impressed by Naim on paper back in the early to mid 70’s, but on inquiring (an inquiry form cut from the magazine advert as I recall, sent and responded to by snail mail!) I found the cost was more than I could afford, so I followed a different path (Radford HD250). My next encounter with Naim was not for getting on for 40 years:

My CD player (Shearne Audio Phase 7) was dying and manufacturer no longer in business. Looking for a replacement I learnt about the brave new world of streaming, and decided that was the future so I needed a streamer not CD player. Did my research, and ND5XS stood out, and an ex demo was in the price range I expected to pay, so I bought (unheard) online. I was very happy with it: easy to set up and use, sound character/quality very similar to my old CD player, And I entered the world of ripping and downloading, never looking back. (And joined the Naim forum.)

A year later the dealer I had bought it from called me and said he had en ex-dem XP5XS available, telling me how much it would improve the sound. I hadn’t planned any upgrading, but having read a lot on the forum about Naim’s power supply upgrading, and having the money available from sale of something else, I went for it. Oh dear, what a disappointment! Such marginal improvement for £1600 - that money could have bought other things. It played on me, and recalling all the things I had read about the quirky little coloured light box named after Victor Hugo, I contacted an online dealer who was prepared to let me have on sale or return. Hugo came, plugged into ND5XS in stead of XP5XS, and my decision was instant: Clear improvement, with so much more natural sound. The XP5XS was on eBay next day, and cute little Hugo stayed.

Roll on another year, and my NAS was annoying me. A very cheap unit, it worked fine but it was very noisy and worsening, so I had decided to replace with a Qnap. However, other reading I had done had mentioned the magic of Audirvana on a Mac Mini, and another solution suggested itself: I could get a MM and try that, and if Audirvana didn’t prove as good as the ND5XS as a renderer The MM would still make a good silent NAS, with additional capability for which I could see uses. So that is what I did: and it was rather disappointing: in some ways good, but sounding like a veil drawn over the speakers and overall not as good rendering as the ND5XS - However I had also learned of Hugo’s susceptibility to RF, and I felt a £100 punt on a Gustard U12 isolator converter that I could move on with little loss was worth a go. And it was: the veil lifted, and Audirvana on Mac Mini improved on ND5XS as renderer, so my remaining Naim box went up for sale.

Overall my Mac Mini/Audirvana/Gustard/Hugo cost about the same as ND5XS+Qnap and gave better sound quality than ND5XS+NAS, and better sound quality than ND5XS+XP5XS+NAS at quite a bit less cost. I became a he who shall be Naimless - life after Naim had started!

However, Audirvana is not perfect, its library handling frustrating at times, and an 8 year old Mac Mini probably won’t last forever, so at some point they are likely to be replaced. When the Uniti Core was announced, with rendering ability, I thought that might be the next solution, and followed with great interest (and occasional expressions of my enthusiasm) - Maybe I would have a Naim again sometime. But as information came out over time it seemed less than I expected, so I no longer think it likely.

Since then Hugo has been replaced with Dave, and speakers now tri-amped with Bryston amps. I have an itch to scratch in being interested in hearing Naim power amps, but I think would have to be the 500, or possibly tri-amping with 500+two 300s… But driving my power amps at present without a preamp. Have no interest in adding a very expensive box of electronics in the form of a Naim preamp, which most people suggest is a prerequisite for Naim power amps. And living where I am, there is a significant time and cost element just going to hear, so it will wait till after I retire and move home. Or better still sufficient sized lottery win to take cost out of the equation!

Meanwhile this forum provides stimulation, interest and information, on a range of subjects, and not only hifi and music, and with rarely any unpleasantness. So thanks to Naim for my introduction to streaming, and for this forum, …and for a little niggle of something I ought to try!

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