Upgrades - have I reached the end?

Just be aware I am busy as a builder, have 4 kids including a 4 year old and 2 ops planned. So it’s not a case of popping in. You would need to plan it with me.

My life is very busy.

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You have some great advice here. My thoughts for what little worth they are in order would be

A) get dedicated spurs installed back to a common ground earth. It will make your hifi consistent and avoid you being unpopular by switching off the freezer to get better sound. Its very cheap.
B) get the room treated. Bass traps, deflect the rear and sides with refection. Reduce echoes. It will create a way more detailed soundstage and increase the speed and timing. Its cheap.
C) if you use a digital source, go through your ethernet setup and make sure all ethernet and power cables are separated. Media server away from hifi and behind switches. Get any devices that can go wifi to go wifi if your network supports it. Make sure last hub before your system is dedicated when you listen. Thats cheap.
D) your amps and speakers are good. 606s are good. 552/500 is amazing. Decide your sensible system end point and then max your sources out to that level. Source upgrades always yield benefits and punch through. With your amps you can go a long way.
E) once you have maxed your sources, demo 808s.

Before all this take your time and listen to music. And enjoy it. And space each upgrade out so you fully appreciate and understand it.

It took me 8 years to get from akurate ds, 282,hicap, 250, ovatar 400s to lp12 maxed spec, 552, dedicated spurs, room treatment, 500s, klimax ds, 808s. In that order. I made one change a year. The last step will happen shortly with next generation klimax dsm.

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Yes, good advice… behind speakers is key… and many forget that… apart from treble frequencies, speakers unless very large such as large PA stacks, radiate all around the, not just in the direction of the drivers… and unless you have the drivers flush against the wall, you can create some unattractive comb filter responses. I have found in my experience systems influenced by a comb filter responses can appear overly sensitive to tweaks which subtly change parts of the EQ.

As far as bass traps to me this are a no brainer for most genres in typical rooms. GIK acoustics have a great range for domestic and commercial purposes with a wide range of finishes. I use their Turbo traps… I found so much more effective than my previous bass traps… and they look nice too… you can put a lamp on top of them if you want :grin:

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Completely understand Dan, my life is very similar. I normally arrange customer visits well in advance so when something comes up in your area I’ll give you a shout to see if it’s convenient or not, and again I totally understand if your plans change last minute. Sorry, didn’t mean to give the impression I’d just turn up lol. Likewise let me know if you’re ever near Newport S Wales and have some time.

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It looks like lots of great advice on here. Sometimes praticalities can make it difficult to carry out all those improvements.

For instance, I have dedicated radial circuit but not separate board. I don’t believe the cables are long enough to switch to separate board. At least I don’t get interference from the fridge. Likewise the TV is on the radial as it was getting interference from the fridge.

So my mains set up is not ideal.

It looks like @Stu299 's set up is a nicely decorated room. Changing mains often means lots of redecoration, floor boards up or parts of ceiling taken down. In my case we cut discs out of the ceiling and then refitted them.

In an ideal world I would have done all the room treatments first in my listening room / lounge. That would include sub floor improvements.

But I don’t want to do all that work right now. If my health improves I would consider it and get the mains done properly with new board and multiple separate radials and ring mains for hifi and TV. I would also take the sub floor up and strengthen it and move the radiator. I would also look at overboarding the room with acoustic plasterboard and room treatments.

Doing work to the room would provide sound improvement gains.

My room could be alot better in these ways. But at least I have the radial circuit and 2 unswitched sockets, which is better than nothing.

My thoughs for Stu are that 808s may well be more significant than going active with 2 x 500DRs. The 808s should be significant step up from 606s. I heard the 808s at @Dunc 's and liked them.

But I like Focal speakers which have different more forward presentation.

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Agree GIK great. One tip is if you order some of their more delicate panels, its worth picking up yourself from the factory if you can. It avoids the lottery of couriers mistreating the boxes.

There’s a pair of Stella Utopia on the bay for a very reasonable £45k. It’s been a while since you’ve upgraded anything isn’t Dan? :grin:

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Please someone buy them so I can enjoy vicariously!!

Btw - I picked up my 300DR from a really nice guy yesterday with an AMAZING system. His whole front room was dedicated to his 500 system, Harbeth speakers and an unbelievable turntable, unfortunately I didn’t catch the brand. It was huge and made of 3-4 layers of acrylic. Acoustic panels all around the room, ceiling dampeners, £6k mains leads(!), the whole shebang.

He was kind enough to let me have a listen and I was truly astonished, it felt like the pinnacle of our hobby in the Naim world. He played a track by the Alan parsons project and sitting there it felt like the band was playing in the room around me in a circle. Wow! If you read this Mark, thank you once again, it was a very kind thing to do :+1:

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It’s the huge wooden crates that amuse me. They can only be moved with forklift truck. They would fall through my floor, weighing 170kg each.

I don’t think they are right for me! :rofl:

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Spoil sport! @Stu299 ??? Anyone??? :rofl:

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There’s a few on here with the Grande Utopia Evo speakers , I believe which are the King of the mountain of Focal speakers.

At Naim HQ they use the Focal Scala Utopia everywhere including in main listening room and the Statement building room. At around £35k new these would be my limit. Could get some used for half that. They are very big. Anything bigger than that, forget it.

I am not in the market for anymore upgrades like that with two ops coming up.

I also need to spend some money on new conservatory roof.

However, if things go very well with the two ops I will look at redoing my lounge with room treatment, new mains, subfloor upgrades.

Once all that is done then I may look at system upgrades. Perhaps different brand of speakers and an S1.

But with ops, I won’t be working much and funds will be going down. So the upgrades are low priority.

What I have is more than good enough. I would have been happy with a 52 and 500DR.

Focal Sopra 2s are brilliant speakers too. Really not sure I can take any bigger for my house.

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Hi Dan, I was only joking and I agree what you have is more than excellent. Especially in that concrete finish.

I sincerely wish you the best with the ops, my auntie lived with cancer for 22 years before passing a few years ago. She was an inspiration to everyone around her and always said you’ve just got to go for it and enjoy life. I know you have the same philosophy and so I look forward to seeing a system pic of some utopia speakers arriving in due course (after the controversy roof obvs) :upside_down_face:

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Conservatory roof sorry… Damn auto correct…

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There’s lots of other makes: ATCs, PMC, ProAc, Kudos, Harbeth, Magico and so on to look at.

I think new mains and room treatment will be a big upgrade.

My room would need that to go any further really.

But to be honest, I really do feel my system is complete. I am not feeling like any further changes of any kind! The only thing I have done of late is tinker with a new switch.

The speakers made the biggest difference to the sound. Then the 500DR and LP12 Klimax upgrades.

Upgrading the room would perhaps be a project for the next year or two. No rush. System at this level sounds sublime.

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Sounds good, it must be nice to not have the upgrade itch! I am terrible for it :joy:

Interestingly, the sales guy from hi-fi cinema, which is where I have my eye on a 555DR, highly recommended the Melco servers. It might just be a sales pitch, but he thought that would make a bigger difference to my system the the 555DR.

I know you were discussing these with others here so I thought I would share his perspective. They have a couple of second-hand ones available; but even then, they are still very, very expensive…

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I would get the 555PSDR first as it will benefit streaming from apps and your NAS.

With no upgrades on the horizon I feel delighted with my system. There really is nothing to be done until the room is completely rebuilt!

The listening room has been redecorated recently so there is even less motivation to do the work. It will be a big upheaval with everything moved out, carpet taken out, subfloor stripped out, rads moved, mains redone, subfloor strengthened and reboarded and refloored. Pretty much gutting a lot of the room. Needs careful planning as well.

So look, if everything goes well with these potential ops then I will go for it. It will be amazing just to do the room properly and keep the system as it is.

The Sopra 2s are a really good speaker. I have listened to top flight ATCs and Kudos 808s and the Sopras compare favourably. Their presentation is totally different and I know that many dislike their looks and their sound. But they are high quality, very well built, have fantastic bass, midrange and tweeters. They are very forward and are not totally neutral though.

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Love the look of the black 606 - very good. Mine are tineo. These black beauties are definitely a catch

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Trust me the second power supply is well worth it…everything just gets better and more natural

Wow! Are you saying the 15000 Sopras are better than the 28500 808? Have you compared at home with your system? I realize it’s a taste thing but if it’s a speaker that can rival the popular 808 it most certainly are above its price point performance wise.

I didn’t say they were better did I? I said they compared favourably.

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