Sweet sounding speakers?

Hi-Fi Corner
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Only my loyalty to the excellent treatment I have received over years from Music Matters will keep me waiting until I have heard and compared all remaining options before going elsewhere. But if they don’t stock Audiovector or ATC or Proac and if one from any of those brands seems the obvious choice for the qualities I am seeking, then so be it. Have to say I have only heard the R1 but there is no reason to believe the R3 would be anything but the same with even more bass and authority, so this remains in the lead by a short head. I will ask John to let me hear them in his spacious barn before taking the step of troubling him to bring them to my cramped abode.

From the glossy brochure and pics I have been careful to show her on the web my wife seems very positive about them.

Good to know, thanks.

Harsh, but fair. Or as PMC might have it, accurate.

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Yes it is difficult but I can assure you Dynaudio are universally thought to match well with Naim and of the five different pairs of owned right down to the Emit range none have been bright.

Bass can be an issue though in the wrong room.

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Same. I’ve never heard Dyns as bright and/or edgy on Naim. Usually a great combination.

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I also think the problem is that your hearing aids are possibly the wrong ones, or badly adjusted, or both.

I have worn hearing aids for longer than I have had Naim equipment and the make that has worked for me is GN Resound. I know there are people here who have got on well with Phonak, but they never worked for me, nor did Widex come to that. Currently I have Resound Ones and a pair of these with four years support recently cost me £3K, so not a big investment in Naim terms. I always insist on going back to the audiologist several times to get the music setting tweaked. It’s very important to listen to each ear separately so you can really talk about what needs doing in each ear - it’s unlikely that both will be exactly the same.

Modern hearing aids all have smartphone apps and these allow you to change programs, likely offer tone controls and individual volume controls too as well as streaming phone calls, websites etc from your smart phone.

Anyway I would suggest you should look into that a bit more than you have before buying new loudspeakers. (And your audiologist’s explanation of what the music program setting does displays quite a surprising level of ignorance incidentally).

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@davidhendon thanks for your measured and helpful post, which I know to be well intended and constructive.

This might be a generational thing. Born in 1945 I am of that vintage which has always looked to the NHS for my medical care and wellbeing, and through the working class background into which I was born the thought of private education was likewise outlandish and unthinkable for me and mine. The NHS and state education has served me well, and I am content. Not that I am in any way against people spending their money on any aspect of private care they can or want to afford, but that is not me. So the thought of paying thousands for hearing aids and private audiological advice is another country and will always remain so. I would not want to develop this further here and in response to any views to the contrary, for fear of transgressing against Richard’s iron rule against political discussion sullying these hallowed pages.

There is an inherent contradiction buried in here of course, in that I am evidently not averse to splurging income (or capital for that matter) on expensive, shiny, completely non-essential consumer goods. Except of course to say that the fact my modest income has allowed me to do that is intrinsically linked to the high standards of health care and education available from the public purse to which we all contribute.

To the thrust of your argument. That my speakers are largely not to blame because they are as good as they ever were but my new hearing aids are less than well adjusted or electronically competent than better aids in more expert hands might be. Its possible both of those are true, yet each of us in our different ways and outlook, and with different spending power available to us, will seek different solutions, and both of us could be right, whilst not being the same.

I’m now on at least my fourth set of hearing aids in approximately 20 years since my congenital hearing loss began to manifest. If I had been having to (or of course electing to) spend privately on hearing instruments costing into four figures, plus private consultations to support their use, I would still have my former Arcam separates with Castle Severn 2 speakers, and could never have lifted my (NHS corrected) weary old eyes to behold the blessed land of Naim.

The aids I had before these newest ones were not revealing to me the harshness of the treble on the PMCs which many other customers must have been hearing, else why has the manufacturer tweaked their output recently? I don’t want to swap my current ones for a sweeter version of the same when a wider range of choice is now before me of alternatives which, in consensus if not in my own individual judgment, are held to be sweeter sounding, wider ranging and yes, even better looking.

So I see this as a fortunate dilemma forced on me by a very good set of hearing aids, in fact the best I have had to date, which, when I am listening to other speakers with a sweeter top end, or in normal conversation, have restored some of my lost hearing from the past 3/4 years to a level better than it then was. Even to the extent that I can hear how harsh the PMCs are and how sweet they are.

Thank you for your insights, but having to tweak and update yet another app is not where I want to go. I envy you your technological adeptness, but I won’t be joining you there.

On reading this back I come over as a pompous oaf. Didn’t mean to. But it’s written now so it might as well be posted

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I don’t think you come across as a pompous oaf. I can’t advise you on your speakers and you don’t want to follow my line of thinking about why your new hearing aids might be adjusted. Fair enough! I’m not going to interfere here further. I hope you find a good outcome, whichever way you do it.
Best

David

By the way you are only 4 years older than me and my hearing loss is congenital in origin too…

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That was a gracious response to my outburst.

I envy you your logical, capable and dispassionate approach to the digital realm which I find so alienating and infuriating. At the same time I have been more than prepared to join the enemy when it comes to grappling with the Naim app if the payback is having hundreds of tracks of high quality music at my beck and call without needing to get off the sofa or the bed. I abandoned the turntable decades ago, and still can’t get used to the thought of not buying, then ripping, actual CDs instead of doing the obvious thing of buying downloads instead.

Just this morning I went ahead and bought in to By Miles car insurance, then became enraged when their app would not download after many tries.

So the thought of using an app to change from day to day or one use case to the next the response of my hearing aids is just anathema. At least when I have bought a nice new sweet sounding and very analogue pair of speakers they won’t keep answering me back or refusing to talk to me.

Not out of the woods yet though. This morning I woke early and so as not to disturb my wife I put on my headphones, plugged into the Unitilite in the bedroom, for an hour of early listening. On waking she informed me she could hear the system downstairs playing. WTF? How had I inadvertently switched on party mode? How to switch it off? Don’t think I’ll ever know.

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How you came to select it, I don’t know. But you can turn it off just by selecting in the app any other input on the Naim units that are partying along.

(If you want more of an explanation, the “multi mode” control is at the right hand side of the now playing screen, which you get by tapping the bar at the bottom in the app and then looking for the icon that is four squares arranged in a square and tapping that…)

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Oh, goodness, as if I needed any more encouragement to get the Atom HE! :grinning:

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After me in line please!

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