Anyone heard the GBP7000 NAIM CD Player?

Oh Nooooo, Michael.
Don't send dat19 away. :yikes:
Every message he sends is like a medecine for me.
Every time I must thank God (don't ask me though which one ) that I am still living and I can recognize a Goodmans mini system from a 5K system.
Thank you very very much.
Michael, isn't that to be blessed?
thank you again.

 

Dat,

Havent you got any speaker measurements or blind testing to carry out?

 

Oh Datty, the match the level trick again, humm woe is me, you see this were a lot of decent cdp's/dac score, low level detail retrival & resolution if you have a transparent systems it's easily high lighted at the SAME matched levels, and yes Balanced outputs are up to 6 db higher for sure, but then I can't tell that I'm deaf!!!!!. I can tell an Arcam cd 23 from a CDs2 or a Cyrus cd 7 sir in the same system, there not expensive, granted the level trick is used by a lot of manufacturers to 'help all' the process of selling
Output stages, are more than just op amps, but the whole section, the strong part is the weakest link, now a lot of pro gear uses switch mode psu's, which by the inheirent nature are good for small enclosed spaces and tight sections, but can have 'interesting effects on the sound', pro gear is basical stripp down to the bear bones good stuff, minimum fuction alledged max preformanace in a small say 1 or 2u rack space to cope with the mounting of ADC/D-A's syn clock gennys, power suppiles /mixing desks, pro tools rigs, so quaint things are catered for, priorities lie in other areas I feel.
Oh, you be surprised at what we do, £70 dvd players, bang per buck they are fun, a lot can be extracted from these, not every thing is wadia my good man, we even do the naim
player (Really)
I understand where your coming from, it's a fair point, but a lot of even half reasonable gear, does have it's own sonics even at lowish levels, granted if you were listen at very low volume levels, only a serious player would stand out, and then not by much.
However, at these listening levels, church mice would need tones ear trumpet I feel. Wm

 

Do you do everything blindfolded?

What a load of crap frankly.

 

I have no problems with dat19's posts, he doesn't seem to be a wind-up merchant to me, just somebody who believes a lot of audiophilia is based on some fairly dubious assumptions, a view I'm sympathetic with. Most people have no interest in testing those assumptions, which is fair enough, I've never double blind tested anything and see no reason to either (then again, I don't spend any of my money on expensive cables and the like), but it's quite refreshing to have somebody like dat19 posting here, IMO, telling him to "bugger off" seems unnecessarily rude.

I know from my own experience that he's entirely right that many "jaw dropping" improvements we convince ourselves about often turn out, in retrospect, to be very minor, and largely psychoacoustic in origin. Doesn't stop me spending money on hi-fi, no need to get annoyed about this basic truth. There's a lot more to audiophilia than the search for perfect sound, anybody who believes they're entirely free of non-musical prejudices and preferences when they're evaluating a shiny new toy is not being entirely honest with themselves IMO.

-- Ian

 

Agree entirely.^^

For the record, its the science bashing i'm here for .

 

As sideshowbob says, we can't easily switch-off our prejudices, bias etc. when listening to hi-fi. I wouldn't want to do blind testing but to me it does seem a good way of hearing only sound differences if we accept that the aim is to evaluate hi-fi on purely sonic grounds alone. If we don't accept that the aim is to evaluate hi-fi on purely sonic grounds alone then blind testing would be an irrelevance.

Sometimes I think we must remember that most of us have brains which are much more complex than any piece of hi-fi. Sadly, this does to not apply to me any more. Not since those universal SACD/DVD-A/CD players came out.

 

I guess everyone is intitled to express thier views,findings and beliefs in all things including hi-fi,in Spain there is a group of guys called matrix hi-fi, who put a discman up against a YBA player,in a blind test,I think it was about 4 or 5 guys who did the test,one of them being the owner,their findings were that they were unable to tell which was which,why not? I really don't know, and don't have the answers to what it is with blind testing that produces these type of results,some say people have prejudices or preconcieved ideas on how some kit will sound,so what about thoes who don't know? why do they go to a dealer have a demo and come away with something they preferd ,if they had a budget,stuck to it,had read no mags,no input from others,what made them chose that particular brand or components?

If everything really sounded the same,it begs the question why bother?just buy the cheapest,best looking kit that catches your eye for £100 and get some pretty speakers.

Everytime i've changed something in my kit,Ive heard differences,more electronics and speakers admitedly,but if it was a blind test and someone said what was playing,I know I would get it wrong,as to guessing what amp,cd player I was hearing.The components I have changed I had no preconcieved ideas of how they would sound,I didn't know if a Cal Audio sounded different to a micromega,but it certainly did,the Bel canto sounded miles different to the Copland and so it goes on,each brand imparting its own little personality on the final result.

Going back to the original question regarding Mick Parry spending 7k on a CD player,if he has the money,is happy,hears a difference,sleeps well at night,then good luck to him and thats all there is to it.

 

A view I'm also sympathetic with but dat19 is starting to be like a broken record which is getting very tedious. Just as certain people used to enter every conceivable thread by saying "stick it all on Mana and you will have found the truth" he is coming in at every point saying "if you double blind tested it you'd find no difference so don't waste your money".

Most of us are not interested in double blind testing and we've all heard differences that are significant enough to be beyond question and that any of us would tell apart 100% of the time in any "sceintific" test. We've also all heard differences that are quite subtle and possibly not really differences at all. I know I would be hard pressed to reliably tell some of these differences apart in a blind test. I've also tested kit with other people when they've claimed to have heard an easily recognizable difference when I've heard none at all.

However, to come in implicitly backing the view that "All CD players sound the same" and "All amps sound the same" is just a deliberate provocation that has no merit other than personal amusement at the reactions of others. It's more commonly known as trolling and trolls should not be tolerated on any forum.

Michael.

 

The view that all CD players or amps sound the same is a long-held one. There was a time pre-LP12/Naim that the majority view in UK audio was that all turntables and amps were basically the same, and the only significant differences were to be found with speakers. The rise of the flat earth and source first changed all that. I don't think espousing the old view can be regarded as trolling, however much one may disagree with it, it has a long history.

FWIW I often hear differences between amps, sometimes very marked (Robbo's switch from DPA to AR amps is a case a point, I think his new amp genuinely does do a better job of driving his speakers than the old one did, and the improvement is very obvious). As I said in an earlier post, differences between CDPs is a trickier case for me, I can hear fairly clear differences between DACs, but vanishingly subtle differences between budget and expensive players using the same DAC. This fact wouldn't necessarily stop me spending a lot of money on a classy CDP if I had some spare cash, but I would know it wouldn't be for entirely sonic reasons, and I'm happy to admit that to anyone.

In any event, most of the bad temper in this thread doesn't seem to be coming from dat19. I think some people are over-reacting.

-- Ian

 

Just a shame more people don't engage them before pressing "Submit"

I'm sort of with dat19 on the fundamentals - blind (double preferably) testing is the only valid listening test, and anything "jaw-dropping" should show up in a simple A/B. There may though be subtleties that only come out in a longer term test - but that could still be done blind (if somewhat impractical). There are plenty of reports of controlled blind tests where no difference has been found, and few if any that have shown up statistically significant differences. Aural fatigue would seem to be a big stumbling block in most tests I've read about though.

Also, (as far as audio is concerned) if it can't be measured, it doesn't exist. And if two things measure the same in all respects then they are the same. That's a far cry though from saying that you/I/anyone else has worked out exactly what we should be measuring.

However, clearly very few of us are really bothered. We enjoy what we bought. (I may make an exception to this laissez-faire attitude though for pushers of high priced cable voodoo ).

FWIW - when I was looking for CDPs I ended up going up market purely because I heard things from the more expensive CDPs I didn't from the cheaper, albeit under sighted tests - and despite me being thoroughly of the opinion that £3k+ for a CDP was quite ridiculous. I think I could have told them apart blind. And I'm quite positive I could tell my current amp from my previous one. But I'm really not bothered going through the aggro to find out whether that's truly a real sonic difference or a delusion.

(PS. Our glorious leader has clearly got out of bed the wrong side today - several uncharacteristically stroppy posts ).

 

Michaelab

You said

"However, to come in implicitly backing the view that "All CD players sound the same" and "All amps sound the same" is just a deliberate provocation that has no merit other than personal amusement at the reactions of others. It's more commonly known as trolling and trolls should not be tolerated on any forum.


I would not call it trolling but freedom of speech.

Regards

Mick

 

TBH I think this is just a case of people being bored to tears by yet another thread being taken over by the blind testing debate.

I suspect Dat19 has taken some flak not completely due to what he has posted, but rather due to the timing of it.

 

Sideshowbob,
Absolutely agree with your views on dat19 postings. I do hope everyone let me stay in this forum.

You lucky man.

This is where my analogy begins to fail. If a CDP or whatever do impart a distinctive 'colouring' to the sound reproduction and you believe you have identified it to the point of total familiarity, it will keep during it forever. Unlike an actress a machine do not make mistake. If the new CDP sounds similar to your old CDP then it should be able to imitate your 'wife' voice indefinitely and further auditioning will not expose it.

We seem to have remarkable senses in that we could tell very subtle differences or pattern without knowing why. If you could recognise Sean Connery's voice you don't need to know how to describe why his is so different to any other Scots but you could certainly be able to pick it out within seconds.

Certainly you do need a long period to really get to know a CDP or whatever. When you look for new gears the best place to start is certainly a side by side comparison to your Old Faithful. If you really do wish to know if it is an improvement then for goodness makes the comparison a fair one. If you are simply looking for a new mistress then don't let me stop you.

 

Wolfgang,

If you admit that YOU are prone to error, HOW can you be so sure that the 'machine' is infallible?

cheers

.............................

What hifi equipment do you employ? Was it double blind tested at the point of purchase?

 

Exactly. Yet another thread hijacked by the bloody blind testing debate again

Graham - I agree in principle but how do we know that we're measuring everything the human ear/auditory cortex can detect? The only measuring method I've heard of that comes close to something I'd accept as definitive is what Keith Howard at HiFi News is/was working on (two articles in May/June 2003 issues I think):

Digitally recording the "output" of a system and then making a statistical analysis of that digital recording against the (digital) original before and after a component has been changed. He showed that repeated tests without changing anything led to statistically significant results showing there was no change (as you would expect) giving the methodolgy some validity. Subsequent tests with a Townshend Seismic Sink and some other isolation gear showed statistically significant differences in only one case (I think it was an RDC isolation "mat"). The methodolgy requires development but it shows promise. Its great benefit is that it doesn't depend on the vagaries of human auditory memory. OTOH that's also its great weakness since nay-sayers will always be able to say that there's an aspect of the sound that the human ear is sensitive to which is not being measured but it's a lot better IMO than measuring a few electronic parameters on a test bench.

Michael.

 

I dont think you have any worries there, wolfgang.

 

Mike - sounds interesting, notwithstanding possible questions about resolution (timing or amplitude). As you say, no doubt there will be some vinylista spouting about digititis or the inability to quantify musical "soul" or "flow". It sounds a good start towards characterising changes in equipment etc., and maybe a good base position from which to start correlate real sonic changes with (blind ) listening tests to determine what is acoustically significant, and thence to the effects of electrical parameters. Could tie up a good few grad students and some serious computing power for several years. Quick - write a research grant!

 

Well, it would imply this if the only reason you married your wife was for the sound of her voice. Otherwise, it would not imply this.

 

An interesting point Michael. I've never compared the prices of dCS's pro gear against those of their (roughly?) equivalent domestic audiophile counterparts, so I had a quick search. Now, maybe I didn't look hard enough, but I couldn't fund any UK retail price info... But over the pond in the States I found these 2 sites:

http://www.aslgroup.com/audiophile/pricelist.htm#dcs
http://www.atlasproaudio.com/dcs.html

So taking the above website to provide our (representative??) exampe comparison...

The "972" is the pro equivalent of the Purcell upsampler. 972 vs Purcell retail price is $5.5k vs $8k respectively.

The top of the range pro DAC is the "955", so let's assume this is equivalent to the Elgar Plus DAC, so $8k vs $15k.

Now the casing is the only obvious difference between those units i.e. the pro units are in slimmer studio style rack mount units. Do the domestic units benefit from their perceived heavier case work viz resonance damping and microphony (if you believe in such factors)? Are there any other siginificant differences internally? I've no idea.

BTW, dCS is bargin basement stuff (especially at current 2nd hand prices ) compared to the likes of say Boulder and Goldmund.