I’m very luck that one of my local pubs hosts bands most afternoons and evenings. Many of them use it to practice before doing a live gig at bigger venues later on, so I get to hear a lot of live music on a fairly regular basis. It’s what I use to measure how good or ‘real’ my system sounds and on a lot of music it can get very very close. I think one of the limiting issues is finding speakers that can produce the kind of dynamics you need to replicate live music, there simply aren’t that many out there but when you find one that does I’d stick with them!
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Just out of interest, does the sound setup at your Jazz club include amplification and speakers, or is it wholly acoustic?
Great track! Added Baba Blues to my Artist list.
My system sounds real in the tonal sense. Instruments and voices sound more like they do in the real than they did with my Naim system. I don’t have to turn it up. I was referring to @Geko talk of loud volumes.
Of all the systems I’ve heard mine is the second best in exactly that department. Sounding real but as you say it won’t come close to the unrestrained dynamics of a drum kit up close. Also I don’t have the preconception it ever will.
My friends system comes closer driven actively with almost unlimited power. He can play distortion free up to 107db. It’s an amazing system to listen to.
My speakers are the best I’ve heard in that regard except the Beethoven Elite. Those are simply in another league when it comes to sounding large and full range.
It’s amplified so the PA obviously ads its signature. They have managed to get it to sound very good indeed if you sit at the right place. But now we are really derailing this thread. Sorry about that.
Solo unamplified sax can reach up to about 98dB at 3m, so if there is loud sax at any point and you equate with being closer than about 7.5m away from the player then that would not seem a realistic level. You could make the same assessment with other instruments - drums and trumpet can be around 10dB louder than sax (and of course massed instruments louder still)
I wonder if the statistics tell the real story.
I had previously voted not improved because there are both positive and negative from the update. Upon further reflection and prompted your post, I have revised my vote to deteriorated.
I feel there are more positives than negatives but if I weight the changes in terms of enjoyment, the harsh highs have a disproportionately negative affect. Where I could easily listen for 2 or 3 hours at a time, I now walk away after 20 or 30 minutes, unless I’m very careful with the music selection. Keep it in the lower registers and it’s better than ever, but higher frequencies soon become fatiguing.
I wonder if others have also voted not improved for the same reasons i.e. that there are both positives and negatives, but without weighting the impact of changes.
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I also took a gander at this and presently playing it on Qobuz and agree, it’s an excellent album with good range and deep bass.
Thanks @Geko
DG…
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Glad you enjoyed it. Here’s one more from my ‘best of live’ collection, so turn up the volume, buckle up and prepare for the best guitar riff you will hear for a while…
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I think others have changed their vote to deteriorated and others will continue to do so.
The new sound is more “hifi” and has an initial wow factor, but if after the initial honeymoon period, you listen to less music because you don’t feel the same enjoyment, then that is not an improvement, it is a deterioration.
Likewise if you need to carefully select which music you listen to in order to avoid sharp high frequencies, that is another sign that there is something wrong with the sound.
Naim need people to get in touch by email or phone to let them know if they are not happy, otherwise they won’t do anything about it. When I spoke to them, they told me they are collecting feedback but they have not had many. So if you are not happy, people need to get in touch with naim and let them have feedback.
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Bizarrely, I had a good, long listening session to Radio Paradise Mellow Mix this afternoon and it was superb! That said, the volume was lower than it would normally be so I will see how it sounds at my usual listening volume, later this evening.
I have provided my feedback to Naim Support.
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I finished work a bit earlier today and had a bit of a session in the kids room. I have to say the ND5XS2 with the latest firmware sounds superb.
The kit: ND5XS2, Nait 50, Proac Tab 10 Sigs, Witchhat Phantom speaker cable.
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A very similar experience to me. My Naim system is all about getting that ‘emotional’ engagement or connection with the music and that’s what I seem to have lost. Lots of detail and a big bass but that’s it. The trouble is I can get that sound from almost any hifi system available on the market today but for a lot less money! I urge Naim to find out what the problem is. Please! I want to enjoy my system and music again!
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A few more (still a minority) now think it is worse:
My view is that some things are definitely better and some music is for me now unlistenable with harsh noise which sounds like a form of HF contouring when you don’t have enough dither.
The fact many of us have had to find configurations of input selection buttons to temper the effect - and these impact small internal noise genaration things which should be barely audible but with this release are very audible in revealing systems makes me wonder if Naim reduced the noise floor a little too much and adding just enough to remove this with solve this.
In any case I have some confidence Naim will be wanting to know what is going on and possibly consider a future uptate that retains the improvements but removes this artifact.
I’m found settings that allows me to enjoy about half my music and explore some new stuff that now sounds better, but some now is terrible and unlistenable for me.
DB.
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Not sure I understand why removing noise floor would be a bad thing? Are you hearing more of the true ND555 + 2x555PSDR performance now and you need to re-adjust your system?
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No it is Dither noise - this is added to improve the HF linearity in ADCs and actually leads to a perception of lower noise and greater linearity. But I recall a discussion (I think by Simon) saying Naim carefully added or tuned some residual low-level noise to the DAC to improve performance.
So I’m not talking of the normal noise people think of here. This dither is always added to remove the quantisation effects that can become audible with the large dynamic range of an audio signal.
It will be music-dependant.
If you get this wrong you get nonlinear harmonic and non-harmonic noise riding around the intended output. This is what I think I may be hearing - on certain music it is very clear and it was not present before the update.
Yet on other music it will not be a problem noticed.
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Gosh, vinyl is more tempting by the minute….
Maybe Naim should just add a noise equaliser setting to their streamers and then people can fiddle with adding and removing noise to however they want it.
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Are you talking acoustic/unplugged or amplified live music. Much amplified life music has squashed dynamics by design… it’s a form of compression and gives a loud energetic sound.
Listening to non amplified music such as an opera, piano recital, brass band, some classical and choral concerts, unplugged jazz band… then that can start to tax a system’s ability.
Most, but not all, pub bands use PAs/amplifiers, and as such all things being equal most Hi-Fi system will surpass such setups… perhaps limited by the hifi low bass speaker response.
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It can be a combination of live but amplified music and, on many occasions, simple acoustic stuff played in the pub garden. They’ve even had a ukulele night where there we over thirty people all playing ukuleles. Sounded amazing.