Newbie seeks advice!!

Posted by: stew5 on 18 April 2012

Hi all, new member here, 1st post - hope you can help!

I'm looking at buying a N-Vi to replace my existing Hi-Fi and home theatre set up and have a couple of questions I'd like to throw open! I've never had any Naim equipment before so this is quite a big step and I don't want to make the wrong decision!

So question one is about the quality of the N-vi compared to separates. I know its all subjective, personal taste and room layout play a big part, but, I wonder how it would stack up against my current system - Marantz CD17 (£1350 and v.good in its day), Musical Fidelity A3.2 amp, (£1000) Arcam DV88plus (with progressive scan, around £950) ) doing the DVD duties. I've got a good but budget AV amp handling the centre and rear surround with the left and right outputs going to the MF A3.2 amp. Speakers are KEF Reference 1.2 (these were about £1300 I think) with the KEF Reference centre, mission DS surround speakers. Van Den Hul and Chord cables.

Though hardly high end, I've spent a while building this little system and enjoy it. It sounds good most of the time to my ears within the volume limits a terrace house imposes! Picture quality from the Arcam is good.

Soooooooooooo, any thoughts on how the N-Vi would compare to this?

Second question relates to the reliability. There seems quite a bit of negative threads highlighting the fact that these units often fail and have odd quirks and the screen seems to die quite often! My current equipment has been 100% reliable forever and don't want to be making trips to the dealer some 30 miles away every week! So are they really that bad?

My wife hates all the separate equipment and the all in one concept of the N-vi really appeals but don't want to take a step backwards in sound or picture quality although I've heard the sound and picture is fantastic, I suppose its more the reliability that worries me.

I guess many many of you have done a similar thing so how did it work out for you?

Thanks very very much in advance for your time! Oh, and are the speaker connections a pain? Do I need special connectors and are they expensive?

Stew

Posted on: 19 April 2012 by Mr Underhill

Hi Stew,

As no one else has dived in can make a few observations:]

The NVi was well reviewed in its day, which as a standard def box is past.

However, it could be somewhat flaky - just do some searches.

Comparisons - you would need to listen to one yourself, but a friend of mine who owned one spoke well of it.

Seems to me that this is all probably a sideways step - apart from WAF!

Do you major on the music or the video?

Do you have a network in the house?

I am just wondering if there is a streaming alternative for you, that would minimise the box count, and hide some hardware in the loft.

Got to say that I still have my DVD5, but haven't used it for over a year!

AV2 still going strong though - and of course - the Naim build and support is comforting.

Posted on: 25 April 2012 by Consciousmess

Plus don't forget, Stew, you can upgrade the nVi with a power amp which adds even more weight to the sound. Jon