You raise an interesting point. I have spoken in person with a few people who find the recent firmware a downgrade, I find it an upgrade. We have listened together and discussed it. We identified the same changes and mostly agreed they were better, however, whilst I can hear what they don’t like about the upper mids/treble, I don’t find it a problem whereas they do. I have no idea why this is.
I think Naim has a conundrum here, how do they keep the people who like the new firmware whilst addressing the needs of those who feel it gets in the way of them enjoying their music of choice?
Both ‘off’ - putting them on adds a bit of murkiness here. I don’t use them, but would put them ‘on’ if it improved something but so far ‘off’ worked best.
I’ll revisit mine again later, but I also have Spotify and Dig 1 and 3 ‘on’ - and Favorites ‘off’ when I was playing music last night.
That accords with what I hear.
The Bass I can handle in my system, but I do think the top-end has a bit less textural information being retrieved and the tendency toward over-brightness.
With some of the settings now configured that reduce the negatives I am able to enjoy the rest that is done well.
I hope Naim will internally experiment and try a few changes to see if they can retain what is better while taming the HF tendency to edginess and unease as these are not things to be had lurking there long-term.
I think part of the problem (depth of unhappiness) depends on how well you have heard your system performing. It’s that old adage, once you hear something it’s very hard to un-hear it! I think if I’d heard the new FW without hearing the old one I’d probably be quite happy with how it sounds. I’ve spent a lot of time optimising my system by trying various new things and gizmos. About 1% of the time I find something that improves it. Most of the time it makes it sound worse or just different. The new firmware just happens to fall into the ‘sounds worse’ category for me!
Look on the bright side; you didn’t have to pay to make it sound worse, which is what you do with many so called upgrades! And we know Naim are on the case.
This is all very odd. The majority who are displeased with the changes to the presentation seem to be mostly concerned with a bloating in the bass and a harshness/brightness at the top end. For me, the change has been almost the exact opposite - if anything the sound has taken on an added degree of smoothness (still retaining the PRaT) whilst at the same time reducing an occasional perceived edginess in the treble. I also feel the soundstage has deepened, becoming more 3-dimensional.
The track, Speed of Soul, by Ghost Rider, has spoken female vocals at the beginning and repeated through the track which, at higher volumes, came across as really sibilant; post update, the reduction in this sibilance is astonishing. My system also showed occasional spittiness on the new London Grammar album (now all gone) and also on the female vocal on the track Between two Points off the new David Gilmour album - also gone.
My speakers (Wilson Benesch Vectors) are very transparent, which might have contributed to this, but for sure, the update has redressed the balance, for me. I wonder whether the opposite is true in the case of other speakers?
Hopefully, those who are unhappy will be looked after but I would be a little disappointed if there was a universal patch applied that undid the improvements I’m hearing.
I revisted the settings a bit:
Turning Off Dig 1 removed some glare - Dig 2 stays on, Dig 3 stays off, tried Dig 4 on/off and presently like it on, but off is good too.
Dig 4 off seems to tailor-off the extremes of HF and very low bass (other settings as above), while on it seems to tighten very deep bass and better portray the sheen on cymbals and shaker type instruments.
On my ‘difficult test music’ with lots going on everywhere but otherwise well-recorded - I’m now hearing stuff I had never before - and it is fun musically and not fatiguing - so that is getting me somewhere.
This is taken from an email from Naim received by me yesterday after I chased them for an update:
“There is currently no plan to release a firmware update with a specific view to changing the sound quality again, but I would stress the word ‘currently’.
Strategic ambiguity.
Never promise something unless you have it all sorted-out first and are confidant you will get an improvement and not make things worse - at a guess.
That would be weird. As company it’s never good to displease customers which use your flagship setup. I will also trigger an email to Naimsupport, I am pretty unhappy now and I never have been dissatisfied with the sound signature before.
I turned them all off except what I need and I am surprised! Any other tips?
I have always had an issue balancing vinyl and streaming on my speakers, the streaming was always warmer than the vinyl surprisingly, but not only do they sound equal in tone but and shockingly the streaming is beating my vinyl set up… eek!!! I honestly have to say I have a very transparent set up, for me this is now a smoother more detailed sound, separation is incredibly wide, layers of music revealed, stuff I never dreamt of at this level. I honestly feel very lucky, IT WAS FREE!!!
Is there a way to trigger a full factory reset and then reload the FW, rather than the reset which doesn’t actually go back to factory settings and hangs on to the firmware?
