Source First or System Synergy?

I’ve been combining listening to CDs and streaming for many years now, and I think I’ll continue to do that, though it will be interesting to compare the performance of the NDX2 and the CD5 XS. Trading in the CD5i-2 just seemed like too good of an opportunity to miss.

I do enjoy the ritual of picking out an album and playing it, but I also enjoy the convenience of streaming. I should clarify that I’m just streaming music I’ve purchased (usually on CD, very occasionally downloaded from Bandcamp) via UPnP rather than using any of the subscription services, which pushes me towards listening to whole albums. I still like to have something physical where it’s available. :cd:

Absolutely, main thing here is we all get why music reproduced to an acceptable standard is important to our enjoyment, music first, source second, pays your money, make your choice. :grinning:

Whilst I have no personal experience I would all of Naims current streamers are better than the basic CD offering Naim now has. I took a risk on a CD555 using dual power supplies and to my ears, nothing is going to beat this, I would guess a ND555 is on par. If I had to stream, your approach would definitely be mine.

I think the trade is definitely an attractive proposition for those CD player owners where repair is no longer an option. I appreciate Naim direction of travel is of course streaming and this encourages a source shift to better align things but they have always impressed me with the ongoing support for products, where possible.

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I can understand the enjoyment of handling physical media, though personally, other than the practical size of opera libretti, I never found CDs and their inserts particularly enjoyable, the writing in particular often uncomfortably small – and that was when I had younger eyes! However, I struggle to see how that has any bearing whatsoever or whether one chooses to play a whole album or not! I Almost invariably play albums in their entirety - and indeed with the great advantage of not having to turn over halfway through as with vinyl, or change CDs on albums longer than 80 minutes, there is no temptation whatsoever to abandon and play something else at that point.

As for browsing, I find that just as easy with my playing software, ditto picking an album at random should I so wish. But what I never have is a lost album because it was somehow put back in the wrong place, or wrong case!

I understand what you are saying and it very much sounds like your listening habits are much the same as those who own physical formats, I have however seen the opposite, with constant changing of tracks. Owning a Naim CD Player, the whole ritual of opening the lid, using the puck etc. is all part of the experience for me. In terms of finding albums, yes sometimes it can be a task, especially when the collection gets large!

Perhaps people of the iPod generation, who habitually just bought individual tracks to be able to boast about the number ic songs they had? Or perhaps the younger generation who have grown up with streaming, and have never understood the concept of an album? Always just people who always listened randomly rather than albums? I can see no reason whatsoever why streaming would change your album listening habits, other than as already mentioned the absence of temptation to change at the end of a disk/side.

Burn the witch!

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Very true

I blame radio😲. And DJs.

I think the basis of the OP title is misleading. Source or Synergy is not in reality a binary choice it is never just about one thing or the other.

It is true that if you have a poor source no matter the quality of the rest of the system downstream (or how good the room treatment) it will still be poor on the basis of garbage in - garbage out.

On the other hand, very high-quality sources may end up sounding bad if all the rest of the system and room is poor and smears, blurs and muddles the signal.

You need both, a system in balance is a good system but I would place the bias to be for a high-quality source on the basis of my first point but not to the detriment of everything else.

BTW if the source is LP records the source means from the needle through the tonearm to the turntable itself. Above all, they must be working in harmony to get the best out of them.

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I agree with many of your points but a source first based system can still be unbalanced, annoying to listen to, and not work well in the room. A source first approach to system building doesn’t guarantee these things.

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Lets quote the Stereophile, just saying ”source first” is referring to Linns original idea. And before you blow up dont forget they also delivered the speakers in those earliest of days.

Over the years, Linn has always asserted that a hi-fi system has a specific hierarchy of importance—that no component downstream could ever sound better than the component preceding it. Linn’s concept of system hierarchy starts from the signal source and ends at the speaker: the turntable comes first, then the arm, the cartridge, the preamp, the amplifier, and finally the speaker (with CD as a source, it becomes transport, DAC, preamp, amp, speakers). This is in stark contrast to the conventional American wisdom, which asserts the exact opposite —that it’s your speakers which make the biggest—and only —difference, so that’s where you should spend most of your budget, with the remainder spent on an inexpensive CD player, preamp, and amplifier because they all sound the same in double-blind tests.

The idea was to always, no matter what level your system were at, have a system on which it was fun and engaging to listen to music. At that time, and in Ivors head, having a true music playback system in your home was considered something special.

The idea on source first / hierarchy was also to make system upgrades lasting. It helped you decide what to upgrade next so it improved the music playback experience and not just changed the sound which is a sideways move you soon would grow tired of.

When you say High Fidelity it should refer to the music, not to an acoustic event.

When I went to the Linn/Naim dealer 45 or so years ago. The above was inprinted in you before you were allowed into the listening room :slight_smile:

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Popular radio is to me the antithesis of playing music of one’s own choice, so I don’t see any correlation between radio/DJs and people not to listen to full albums.

Fortunately I avoided being indoctrinated and learnt through experience within the first few years of my hifi trail that speakers are the most critical component, so emphasis on getting them as good as possible to one’s taste is more important than focussing on source, though source needs to be reasonably decent! Sadly there were people who succumbed, but we’re not allowed to talk about religion here!

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It was a joke, of course :rofl:.

A high-quality source does not guarantee a good sound as I said the rest of the system needs to be up to it but my point is that it is not one thing or another.

However, a poor source is not going to be made better by a good quality everything else it will just produce all the source’s bad points faithfully.

Source first only means get that right or no matter what, it is going to sound poor it does NOT mean spending all your money and attention on the source and the rest of the system does not matter.

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Source first.
If it isn’t there to start with you can’t recover it later. :thinking:

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I think we’re on the same page :slight_smile:

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What does this actually mean?