Heathrow show.....

Sure it doesnt exist - its an ideal - something to aim for. What happens at the recording stage isnt relevent to the purpose of the amplifier as an object.

Read more carefully its all in there. Well mine does. I will accept "a well reproduced recording" as a compliment - that is after all what was fed into them I am sure! So thats what I want.

Yes our goals are different.

Wadia - I thought the pmc room was laid back if anything.

 

Yes but they were showing the domestic range. Personally I find the professional stuff somewhat more clinically balanced but with similar presentation. WM what speakers, if any, did you think had promise?

 

I prefer the pro stuff - loud enought to shake fillings loose.

All join in now ... "ace of spades"...

 

I wouldn't. There lies the difference.

So we have a chain. Person sings. Microphone picks it up and distorts it. Digital desk distorts signal. Digital decimation further distorts signal. Transfer to vinyl distorts signal. End result is nothing close to that dear person we started with, whose voice and music we have paid to hear.

Now what if a system managed, for the majority of your recordings, to get you back the artist? Wouldn't that be a music lovers ambition?

 

Laid back hehe.
SM,

The Peak Consaultants in the Nagra room showed that given some correctly matched components they could produce some class sounds.
The New Verities, (DCS room) very difficult to tell, as the amount of musical dissasembly that was going on was dire. never I have heard such a cronic timing & disintergration of sound as displayed in that room.
The Duvels have some charm in the mids (but not much else), Those things in sounds of music room, whoooo weee Grimsville USA.
The Totems had some nice sounds.
The LV all fruity bottom end but acceptably nice mids.
You'll have to remind me of anything else, cuz it was pretty bad IMO

 

What did the Naim room sound like?

 

I know you wouldnt SM - we want different things. No point arguing about that part. I want what is in my ears to be as close to what is on the encoding as possible. Sure the recording process adds distortion but that doesnt mean extra distortion should be added during playback. The role of the hifi is just to reproduce what is on the disk warts and all.

It isnt getting you back the artist - it is making one up.

The rockport was awful.

 

Rather enjoyable IMO.

 

I thougt Naim sounded good. And the n-Vi (what a ghastly name) looked and sounded like a well thought out and executed product.

I also thought the Heed and dCS rooms were good. One of either me or WM is deaf, or both but in different ways.

 

Wow, I thought the Naim room sounded shite! Well considering the cost of it all. There were worse sounding systems at the show I suppose.

I went from the Dali room which was great IMO especially for £900 speakers, to the Naim room where their £5,000+ speakers sounded worse to my ears.

 

I thought the naim was worst at the show. Did they have different kit on different days?

The heed sounded "nice" but it wasnt at all accurate or precise.

dcs sounded good so far as I could tell - given the rather hifi sounding amps and speakers.

 

I thought the Naim was one of the best along with Heed. PMC and TACT the worst.

 

The Naim room sounded like Naim kit Bub.

The timing/pace thing was there.

I did think it a little harsh in the treble, but sounded reasonable on non agressive recordings.

Given the price of the entire system (approx £50,000), I felt in a VFM perspective it didnt give the scale,dynamics,tangibility or soundstage of other systems in that kind of price band.

If it was £5,000-£10,000 I would feel that perhaps more reasonable. I suspect the speakers werent to my taste.

As ever, if you love what Naim does, it would appeal.


THe second Naim room (the AV room) ... well taste is subjective, but it was genuinely the worst AV sound I've heard - apart from those dems where they put the subwoofers on full in order to show off stunt-bass. It was tinny, thin, just yuk.

I'd give the Naim 2 channel system 7 out of 10 for sound (3 out of ten in VFM), and the AV system the other way round.

 

I thought it was naims budget system - didnt really look at the kit. Took one listen and lept out. It was very strident and harsh. Hard to forgive if it was truly £50Ks worth. If it is then it certainly didnt look the part wrt build and workmanship compared with other offerings.

 

I've always disliked Naim but have to give them kudos this time around. We sat for some time, listening on Naim's terms so to speak. In other words, we were not listening for audiophile add ons like soundstage and image specivity, more for tonal palette, micro dynamics and instrumental timbre, the things that make real music what it is.

Here, the Naim kit was some of the best at the show. it was able to convey the texture (god I hate that word) of real instruments really well, although I still felt it was both limited by the Naim loudspeakers and, overpriced in comparison with some of it's sonic competition.

So having derided them for years, I felt this was pretty good. Some people seem to find it hard to get rid of predjustices but to say it was bright and strident suggests that they either have never heard live music, or are simply repeating age old myths built up over the years and repeated ad infinitum on internet chat rooms like this one.

 

Your posts seem to be attendent upon mine SM... I can only assume you enjoy debating with me or something!

Nothing to do with internet forum myths or prejudice. I have spent literally 100s of hours listening to naim amps as some of my friends have (or should I say "had") them. I have heard everything from the nait up to the 552 and 500. They do not sound anything like live music to me - and I spend a lot of time at rock, acoustic, classical and world music gigs. You have strange ears my friend! It seems whenever I express an opinion contrary to yours then I must be someone who has no live music reference or just buys into the internet naim-knocking brigade. The truth is not so simple. I am afraid I have legitimate and well informed objections so you cannot write off the opposing view point so easily with these generalisations.

 

Hi,

Not absolutely. What got me to my conclusion was:

1) Absence of visible output valves.
2) Claims of output transformer less single ended circuitry.
3) Relatively cool running Amp.

Ciao T

 

Did anyone else think the 47 labs turntable sounded a bit odd somehow?

 

No,

your referring to the Naim as harsh and strident suggested to me that you were simply repeating myths rather than listening, that's all.

I can assure you, there is little wrong with my ears, as I believe a large number of people could testify. You on the other hand, don't seem to have others to correlate your opinions, making them of dubious merit to others on occasion.

Statements like you have made on this thread, seem to be out of kilter not just with my own views, but those of many others to. Doesn't that suggest you are the one with the unique and odd hearing?

 

nope mic, they look just FINE. HONEST.