The round earth may be hiding inside your Naim....

I'm beginning to wonder a bit about this whole flat earth versus round earth debate that sorrounds Naim. Over the past several years I have come to accept the idea that to achieve the things that my Naim system does extremely well, it was necessary to sacrifice some things that other audiophiles appreciate. Things such as (cover your ears!) soundstage and imaging.

Well, I'm now beginning to think that this isn't so much a feature of the boxes themselves, but rather reflects the speakers that are often the choice of fellow Naimophiles. Case in point, I came close to buying a pair of neat Elites, which sounded fast, tuneful, but oh so flat in my system, that I just couldn't grow to like them. I recently changed my speakers to Audio Physic Virgos, and suddenly my system produced an incredibly lush and round sound, but still had all of the rhythmic characteristics that initially brought me to Naim.

Now maybe this is more reflective of the "new" Naim sound, but I think that the idea that the "flatness" of Naim is inherent in the electronics may be incorrect. Instead, the speakers that tend to attract Naim-owners may be keeping them in the pre-Columbian era of flatness.

Bruce