The worst proper HIFI you have heared

A Naim System SOUNDS alright for the first Five Minutes

 

At shows and/or in demo rooms:

Naim - always seems more or less competent, but underwhelming.

Sugden A21 integrated - sounded like Marvin the paranoid android, so bored it was ready to cut its own throat.

Proac speakers - polite to the point of making the music disappear. Absolutely refuse to boogie. Heard four models, all deadly dull.

JM Labs floorstander - can't remember which one. Beautiful furniture, dull as ditchwater to listen to.

Heard a lot of good stuff too, to be fair - more good than bad.

 

I have heard lots of awful proper Hifi.
It's impossible for me to tell which one was the worst because this depends on which criterias I was using when listening to and judging them.

Sometimes the worst proper hifi was my own.

 

Mf Kw Sacd.

 

As davidf knows .....naim kit can require a lot of setting up, you can't just plonk it into a room and play it, and hope to get anything like its true potential....

good grief .....I'm defending naim and its certainly not my cup of tea!

 

All kit requires setting up. I dont think naim requires any special attention so far as I am aware.

 

I find the good stuff requires opening the box and switching it on.

 

Except for speakers and record players I would agree

 

Briz yes I should have added the caveat ,except turntables, speakers you do have to experiment with position.

 

All these Naim comments are not really relevant to this thread. The thread is the worst proper hifi, and if set up decently, Naim sounds fine. You may quibble with what it does or does not, or that it is expensive, but it is not the worst at anything. That is just a fact,

And while I'm at it, my friend next door has Wilson Watt/Puppy's (not that recent) with an overly expensive Krell CDP, and it sounds damn good. Maybe not what everyone values, but again, simply not right to call it "the worst".

Bruce

 

hummmmmm......

worst is subjective

For me the worst sounding gear I've used in my system would be a audiolab 8000p/s combo

This was thin sharp and in your face, the presentation made it impossible to listen to any music or spoken word.

I got rid .....oddly enough the system where t found a new home sounded fine with it but thats only because the speakers were dull in the extreme.

As to siting naim kit ....why do you think most naimies used a cetrtain type of equipment support ? From my own experience its obvious the power amps need to be isolated from there support as they sounded better with tile spacer feet.....

DaveF will elaborate if you ask nicely, as it was his naim kit.

 

This is without doubt the most pointless thread I've seen on ZG, and what's more it was always guaranteed to offend owners of named equipment.

If anything, it just proves that the system and its setting as a 'whole' is paramount, as is the ear of the beholder, which is hardly breaking news, is it?

 

Probably the most sensible post in this thread IMO. However, some posters do seem to appreciate that they were listening at shows or unfamiliar rooms etc.

 

yes .....

 

I remember hearing the Chord stuff a few years back. The slim series with the round glass screens so you could see inside. Looked cool as hell. Sounded thin and hideous. I remember a few people thinking the same at the Bristol show. Bad acoustics too blame apparently.

Can anybody remember the name of the Amps that sounded delicious with the Castle Howards? Electro Accompaniment ?

 

You might have misheard the Norwegian name www.electrocompaniet.no. "Electrocompaniet" simply means "the electric company", the -et suffix being the definitive article "the" added, rather than a prefixed separate word in English.

 

That's the puppy.

Thank you.

 

I used to have EC stuff - very good indeed, especially the preamps.

 

true enough...

With petes ideas we gained enormous improvements....eg by improving the isolation of the the equipment with tile spacers.

Tile spacers?

Yes, cheap but very effective.

Ive no intention of jumping too strongly to the defence of naim, though i might say to those who have been so, shall we say........ critical - eva cassidy sounds very nice to me downstairs as I write + has done for longer than "5 minutes".




David

 

I second that!

LP12 too, I understand it is of historical importance but I find the sound very uninvolving.

And I disagree about the thread being pointless, we hear enough hype from numerous sources including this very web site about how components and systems are supposed to work, which is in truth subjective (and always will be). Why should those that wish to pass a few seconds of idle time submitting a subjective view, which may be negative in theme be condemned for doing so,...rather an elitist viewpoint isn't it?!