CD5i = muffled - very unimpressed...

Uh, Alex, weren't you running an MC from a Japanese company in an American record player? I'll gladly take this crap off you.

 

To get back on-topic for a sec...

Opportunistically tonight I had the chance to hear the CD5i at my dealers, whilst picking up my 'new' IBL grilles (which look as if they've been languishing in a box in the corner of the Naim factory since the IBL's were last made, 'cos they certainly don't look new. In fact they look worse (greyer and more faded) than the ones I had already! I shall keep them as spares if they're cheap enough, but there's certainly no musical revelation from fitting them and now my speakers look old and grey (in keeping with how they're owner feels most days)

Sotrry 'bout that, back to the CD5i thing, the CD5i was fed via a Nait5i to a pair of Allae's.

Obviously an unbalanced combination w.r.t. front end vs back end expenditure, but often a useful one, I've heard Allae's sound good, so I'm reasonably confident they weren't reponsible for what I heard, and they should be revealing of the front end stuff.

I'm puzzled by the 'muffled' statement though, was it actually dull (as in no treble) or was it just waffly bass, giving a muffled sound?

What I heard was certainly not the first, in fact the treble was extremely refined for it's price point in my view, but bass...well how can I put this...it wasn't what I expect of Naim.

Basically it was a bit boomy and inarticulate, it struck me as if it had been engineered to add a bit of subjective bass weight, to satisfy those that would complain about no bass from a normal Naim setup, but in my view it was a bit slow and ponderous down there, not the worst I've heard, but not the best either.

 

The bass wasn't a problem on the one I heard - literally, the treble was refined because there was none. It was really really muted - like I say, like listening to a tape deck with slightly dirty heads - the top end was muffled. Veiled - what have you.

The CD5 in comparision was much better.

To be fair though - as mentioned, the 5i might not have had many hours on it, and I'm hopefully going to find out today what a NON-run in CD5 sounds like - provided Naim's delivered one to Audo-eXcellence today (they "forgot" to include the 2 AX had ordered on Wednesday - grrrrrrrrrr).