What was the last bit of gear you bought in 2023?

Why so long……a problem at the Wilmslow end?

No, it was me.
I sold them to my Brother in Law, but he wasn’t using them and I was missing them.
I got them back from him and took them to Wilmslow in late March early April, only I got the email address wrong on the PayPal payment so it sat in limbo for 3 weeks. Then we had all the Bank Holidays as well🤷🏻‍♂️
Still they’re here now and playing Rush - Power Windows😊

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Nice one.

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Let the madness begin…

Captureeno

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Interested to hear about your findings :+1:

Demoed earlier in the week and then purchased yesterday, a second hand XPS-2 for my CDX2. A lovely addition, very chuffed.

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I picked this thing up earlier in the week. It’s rare, and quite possibly utterly useless, but I’ve been after one for a good few years (this despite having had one perched on the window sill behind my desk for all the years I worked at the Naim factory), so when this popped up, I couldn’t resist.

image

Can you guess what it is…?

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I’m waiting for mine to arrive. I’m upgrading from the Phantom cable which I have been happy with, but having read reviews I had to go for it. Where do the shine?

Finally bit the bullet and new pair of special 40’s , no more upgrades old or a while just time to get lost in the music

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I have one on my cds3 and it’s worth every penny, going up to the 555 is silly money territory here so this is as good as it gets for me.

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Naim AV1?

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Bullseye! An AV1. A bit like the old Dynavector Superstereo. Supposed to add a sense of acoustic space to 2 channel music and film tracks. Could be interesting…

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Nice to see the black vine finish, haven’t seen them in the flesh but they look interesting, difficult to capture in a photograph I’d imagine

It all depends on the light, at times look really dark and other times the red comes through , the finish is superb

Let me know how you get on - this does sound interesting! Where does it fit in the chain?

Connect into one of the preamp outputs on the preamp power supply and connect up a power amp to one of the outputs to drive the rear speakers. Left and right levels are adjustable via the front knobs (which act on a pair of lovely ALPS Black Beauty pots). Adjust levels to taste.

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They’re a big step up from Phantom and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Key improvements for me are vocal clarity, midrange detail and more authentic bass. I’m only 16 days in and they still have more to give but I’m not expecting to take advantage of the 45 day trial period return for full refund.

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Thanks for posting that pic, Richard. Always curious about the internals of the AV1.

A rare beast indeed.

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Any chips in there with the Dolby “double-d” logo on them? The original Dolby surround processing was quite basic, with an added delay for the rear channel (which was in fact mono)

It should create a nice ambience from any source material as it probably relies on the difference signal derived from the incoming left and right channels.

Nothing obvious that I can see on top, but it’s hard to see as the main boards are sandwiched one on top of the other. IIRC it’s a Hafler type design.