Ah, what speakers for a lady who wants decent sound and harmony with interior of house ?
May I suggest colour co-ordinated Linn Magik speakers ?
Looks are important and not everybody wants 3 full frail stacks.
My first Naim amp was a 72/140 , so half size boxes. 20 years of pure joy! On impulse a few years ago I bought a Uniti Qte (Half size box) for the kitchen, it has been great, however my daughter has just bought her first home in Edinburgh so I have given her the Qte and a pair of AE300s on stands. Very discrete and she loves the looks. I was astonished how good the sound was, I would love to compare that 72/140/hi cap with the current nova/atom ranges. I have an atom, so maybe an eBay trawl! Small can be beautiful although I suspect I will revert to the stacks of 500 stuff and multiple fraims!
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My Atom is hidden on a lower shelf to avoid other members of the household asking too many questions. They know what the system does but aren’t fans of the styling, bulk and cabling. They’d be very keen on the Atom however!
Ok, so my friend came over to the house carrying to what she now calls “My Precious” (that would be her Atom 
). She wants to hear it using my set up.
Before hooking up her Atom to my Proac DB1s, she wanted to hear first my ND5XS2 and XS3 (with NACA5). Upon hearing the first track she picked, she started saying funny things….
“Whooooaaaaa! Whoa!! What the……. What’s going on here!!! Hey…… What kind of sorcery is this!!! Why is it that the sound seem not to come from the speakers? Do you have speakers inside the front wall? It’s as if the vocals and instruments are coming out from free space and the small speakers are mere decorations???. Can my Atom do that? Let’s try! Let’s try My Precious”
I told her that my room is far from perfect, it’s not really treated, it’s just speaker placement is symmetrical from the side walls and far from the front wall, taking into consideration an equilateral triangle for the listening position bla bla bla…. In a nutshell, I told her the importance of speaker / listening position vis-a-vis the room, and it’s not all about the gear.
We hooked up her Atom, and there it was. She was happy that the sorcery she was talking about was also being recreated by her Atom. She was so amazed and told me that she will further experiment speaker positioning in her house, maximizing its sound before getting her own pair of speakers. She did admit that my black boxes did sound “better” (she couldn’t express / describe it as she is still unfamiliar with audiophile adjectives and jargon). But further remarked; “Yours might sound a bit better but they look ugly unlike My Precious”
What really made my day were 2 things:
-
A happy music lover being excited to learn more things in this crazy hobby of ours.
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I was astonished about the Atom. Really. Yes, my ND5XS2 + XS3 still clearly had more dynamic shadings, bass articulation compared to the Atom. What surprised me was the Atom’s punch and sheer musicality as compared to a lot of integrated amps that I have owned and borrowed in the past. For an all-in-one, this is really something serious. Beauty, brains, and brawn. Honestly, I could live with this and call it a day. That’s how much I liked it.
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I LOVE to hear this. Happened the other day when I forced my brother to listen to some Santana. He said the same thing “where is that sound coming from etc”. The Atom is a really nice unit for sure especially with some Proacs!!
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Truly an enchanting story, if anyone can get that excited. It also reminds me of my first experience at the dealer, how great the Atom can sound in an optimised environment. This is also in comparison to a 20+ year old big system that I had previously owned. And correct positioning of the speakers is absolutely essential, further minor improvements are absolutely sensible. It also seems much more sensible to me to exploit the potential of the existing equipment than to constantly buy new expensive equipment. I wish your friend a lot of fun and fulfilment in listening and that the enthusiasm for listening and her system remains for a long time
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If it was artistic would it not follow golden mean rules rather than thirds?
Not sure what those are, but rule of thirds is common for visual composition, at least in photography, whereas whilst it seems to have some proponents with room setup for hifi I’m not sure that it is actually as good approach as others.
Not sure what the ‘flat earth Naimers’ of yesteryear would make of this…
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The Golden Mean is used by artists, often without realising it, to divide up their work horizontally and/or vertically, so that the ratio of the smallest to the largest is the same as the ratio of the largest to the whole. Aesthetically it proves more pleasing to the eye than a perfect fraction. My gut feeling is that it works for acoustics as well, interestingly the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam has dimensions that are unbelievably close to golden ratios and its acoustics are the best I’ve heard.
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I think the only real flat earth Naimees are those still using Naim loudspeakers 
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Well said, indeed. And it’s a bit baffling because the same people will go to the cinema not just because of the large screen but because of the sound, and they wouldn’t question the difference.
But there you go …
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Nice story and your final point is spot on.
Like your friend I started approx 18 months ago with a MuSo 2nd gen. Loved the sound, the simplicity, not just for music but also TV sound via HDMI arc. Then decided I had an urge for true stereo separation for music and given my appreciation of the Naim sound, style and an app that actually works, I demo’d and then bought the Naim Atom with some Sonus Faber Lumina II speakers. It’s superb, I love the sound but have already considered further upgrading to the Star or Nova. Decided not to….for now… 
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I did similar with a friend from work, he had an ok setup at the time with an AV amp and some Monitor Audio AV style speakers, on the wall and on stands.
He came over to mine for lunch, had a listen to some familiar tracks and after various dealer demos ended up with PMC floor standers and a Uniti Nova.
We listened to a lot of amps and speakers as well, he had his head set on a Moon Integrated amp and Sonus Faber speakers when we started the process.
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