Naim AV2/NAPV175 etc.

mike,
i say tomaHto.
cheers


julian

 

Afternoon all :MILD:

Thought I might just wade in here for a first post, with a few quick thoughts.

To my mind, re the AV side of things, it's easy to overlook that the basic sound source is using lossy compression, i.e. despite all the multi - channels, one is never going to have the resolution available of stereo as we know it, until such time as perhaps blue lasers put in an appearance, with HD DVD's complete with multi-channel high resolution soundtracks. Also lets not forget that a typical soundtrack consists of dialogue, sound-effects, and music, pretty much in that order in my experience of movies.

Oh, and did I forget to mention that at least 50% or more of the movie watching/involvement experience, and arguably the dominate one involves this side 'distraction' to the sound, called the picture?

Heh, only stirring a bit here, but speaking as a fellow Naimee, with all that's good and bad about that, and being of slightly more bent towards music than movies, but nonetheless wanting a really good solution to the AV question, I too considered the AV2/175 combo.

It's good, no mistake about that, but in the end I didn't buy it.

Points of merit were the usual excellent rythmn and timing. (But of dubious value on the average movie) The resolution and naturalness of any sound one cared to concentrate on in the mix was typical Naim (well to my ears anyway ) being full, warm and detailed, with a wonderful subtlety re dynamics etc, which made dialogue seem very natural, flowing and involving per se.

Ditto the ability to be able to resolve various sounds in a mix, such that one could hear the whole both separately and also balanced with the other sounds in the mix, or by the same token concentrate on any part with ease, be it in the foreground or background of the mix.

This sense of separating out the strands of interweaving sound, where you could here each individual part in the mix, or just focus on one alone, was to my mind one of the big attractions, alongside the clarity this brought to the dialogue, along with the aforementioned subtle inflections of vocal delivery courtesy of the mico-dynamics etc.

On the negative side, bearing in mind that IMHO part of the movie experience is to recreate the movie theatre, as against a concert hall, the size of the soundfield generated, and the precision and speed of steering etc, whilst excellent, didn't strike me as being a great deal better than much cheaper units I heard.

At the end of the day, as it comes at a prodigious price here in OZ, I simply felt that what it offered re a total movie experience was not far enough ahead of cheaper units in the all important involvement/satisfaction/ being there stakes, as to justify the price.

No doubt there are other competing products such as the TAG's, Meridians etc of this world that well may do an even better job.

However, for me, after evaluating Denon, Rotel, Arcam and Sony vis -a-vis cheaper/available units, I went with an ES series Sony pre-power combo of AV processor + multi-mode power amp. As others have done, the pre-outs from the processor drive the Naim pre-power etc, and the poweramp drives the rears (running centre speakerless presently) and it does it's job very nicely to my ears.

True, the resolution, separation, and clarity of fine detail is not in the AV2 class as I've outlined above, nor is the sense of rythmn, however it certainly comes quite close in most of those areas with the exception of rythmn.

However, using it's inbuilt Sony proprietary Cinema modes gives a large enveloping pool of ambient sound, with excellent steering, always clear, fast and well focused, but without losing that pool of ambient sound - in this area it has the edge on the AV2 IMHO.

The bottom line is that it does as advertised, in that it makes a reasonable job of giving the sort of large room enveloping sound that one experiences at a movie theatre, rather than a tight HiFi kind of presentation such as the AV2. I like it a lot, as whilst I know it's not at the cutting edge (despite using a SHARC processor like the top Denons and the TAG) it's provides a very involving movie experience that to my ears is not far at all behind the likes of the AV2, especially when price is taken into consideration.

My contention is that rather than get into Naim bashing, or defending, is to ask whether it is worth it to spend REALLY large amounts on the sound side of HT given the dominance of the picture in the total movie viewing experience, and that one is dealing with lossy compression as a source.

True, the better processors ARE better, however as always, whilst one gets what one pays for, the law of diminishing returns seems to kick in with a vengance given the current technology, and the tendency for High End manufacturers to buy in OEM chips etc, do some fine tuning/tweaking, and sell it on at thrice and four times the cost of something more mainstream with the same processors and arguably not significantly inferior performance.

Anyway, just my 2 c worth. Nice to be here BTW, seems like a nice friendly forum.

Best

John...

 

John,

Welcome to the forum and might I say that's a bloody excellent post!

I guess that's just what I was trying to say, sadly I lack the skills to put in a such a reasoned form. Which Sony did you end up with ? My first DD processor was the SDP9ES, and like you I found the movie modes to really help in generating a huge soundfield.

For the ultimate variant of that space thing, I am still amazed by what Lexicon's Bass Enhance can do in a small room. It's like knocking the walls out. Sadly I have not had the chance to listen to the newer Sony's, but I suspect their in house surround modes have only got better since I enjoyed them.

Anyway, thanks for your input. If you get the chance do list your kit in the appropriate thread.

 

Nice post John, welcome...

As you say, the biggest shortcome of good receivers is the power section, otherwise they do what they are supposed to well enough...

Still, good processors will give you the same diff a good pre does from an integrated + better surround processing, I don't need any proprietary Cinema modes to get a large enveloping pool of ambient sound with DTS and DD 5.1, and DPLII does the same, sometimes even better, with stereo sources... :MILD:

 

Thank you both Merlin, and lowrider for the welcome

My system is modest by some standards, but fairly well balanced IMHO.

I have written a bit as you suggested in the welcome to newcomers thread.

Best regards

John...