Advice wanted from fellow fraimees

Only two options eh!

Nah, go XPS. from what I know of the Fraim costs this is not so different and I'll wager makes biggest improvement.

Sorry.

Bruce

Buy loads of new music and live with what you've got now (which isn't bad BTW)

New music is the best upgrade...

Bruce is right, the XPS will give you a far better sound....the Fraim can come later.

Regards

Mick

My opinion would be to sell the NAP180 and buy a brand new NAP 250. I own SBLs and love them, a lot. I think they need a 250 minimum to get an equal amount of resolution from them as you are already getting from your CDX, 102, Hi-Cap. Yeah, an XPS will probably give the most musical improvement in many ways, but one must have balance, no? From your two options, it doesn't sound like you have funds to spring for a XPS, A new 250 less your earnings from your 180 sale may be more in line with what you want to spend right now.

I have a 5 year old 250 on my SBLs but took home a new 250 to compare. The new unit sounded faster, fatter, more right in harmonics... what the heck are they feeding those things in Salsbury?

Connon

quote:

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the better your system sounds, the more you enjoy the music.

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i know many think so. but it is wrong. it should go like this: "the better your system sounds, the more you enjoy hifi"

enjoyment of music has nothing to do with the quality of the system.

name, imo you better go for your second option. simply because you will always lose money when selling something in order to buy something new. following this logic it would be best would to buy a fraim s/h. if you find one!

I'm with Marco here, and disagree totally with Torsten.

Good HiFi has opened up my enjoyment of music, making me buy more variety and also showing me things in recordings I have known and loved for 20years but re-discovered when the system has been upgraded.

You can enjoy music on a battered tranny at the bottom of the garden for sure, you will enjoy it more on better kit. Spending money on HiFi makes me buy more music.

If my hobby was birdwatching I would get more pleasure with better binoculars-the essential tool to view that which interests me. The birds do not change but the appreciation does. HiFi/music is the same.

My hobby is music first, not box collecting.


Bruce

I would probably plump for an 82, it will bring refinement to the table. The fraim is good but not the sea change people have mooted. I think the better your equipment the more a fraim brings to the party. Oh and by the way your system is substantially better than 'not bad'. Whoever said that hi-fi does not bring increased pleasure from music is soooo missguided. As my system has improved i find i buy more music, listen longer and explore my back catalogue more often. I think the forum is getting tedious again!

quote:

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i know many think so. but it is wrong. it should go like this: "the better your system sounds, the more you enjoy hifi"

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I also have to disagree strongly. If this is your view of things, you've still got a lot to discover (which is good). Furthermore it's a lucky thing you somehow ended up with Naim equipment, which is really good at doing music, as opposed to stuff that's really good at doing hifi.

When I first exposed myself to 'serious' systems, I expected sonic fireworks, sound that envelops you, moves all about. That was about 12 years ago at my local dealer's - they played a really expensive system (might have been an active Linn job) and didn't see me again for 10 years because I left thoroughly unimpressed. I didn't get it.

Well chosen flat earth kit, set up correctly, will not sound spectacular, not flattering at times, but once things fall into place and you realize what it's about it will change the way you listen to music forever. This realization sometimes comes tiptoeing where you least expect it.

I remember at one point, I think after upgrading from Credos to SBLs, listening to Van Morrison's "Caravan" (off the Moondance album) - not exactly an audiophile recording. On a good system, however, you will realize just how good the playing is. The drummer on this track grooves like a f***in' bastard, something I had overheard all the years before because on my old Technics/JVC system the mid/bass unit just produced a slow, flabby pfart-pfutt-pfart-pfutt and omitted all the ghost strokes, the minute volume differences in the snare beats, the relentless consistency and flow of the timing throughout the piece, even (or especially) when it changes. Sometimes "hifi" is thrown in with all the important improvements. Oh goodie gumdrops, more bass extension! Hey, imaging! But I will never forget the day I sat there in total awe of the MUSICAL enjoyment I derived from my new speakers, wishing I had a longer neck so I could rock along to the music even more.

Quite often setup is crucial to obtaining the musical aspects as opposed to the hifi ones. For example, I had my speakers too far apart for quite a while, owing to problems with my room acoustics - pulling them apart takes away some of the bass precision, which in turn makes it sound pleasant and big on all pieces (= hifi). Having them closer together isn't always as flattering, in fact in some cases you can hear the room nodes wreaking havoc with the frequency response. OK, so what, I've got a bit of a prominence at x Hz now. A price I'll gladly pay for better timing and impact (= music).

When you stop worrying about frequency response and get your rocks off on gut-wrenching kick drum/bass interaction, you know you've arrived on the flat earth.

Thomas

dear naim-fellows,

i am not surprised at all. of course we all - i am happily including myself - have to justify that lot of money we spent on gear.
i have to disappoint you. i have heard expensive systems, very many different systems, full naim, full other stuff. i also see the advantages of good equipment. however, none of the equipment made me listen longer and with more pleasure to any kind of music. i always listened long and with great pleasure to any kind of music. i have no record that i thought was crap and became great in my eyes after upgrading my kit. boring music remains boring music on any kind of equipment. exciting music sounds exciting on any kind of equipment. if you can not agree, i have to think that you are not able to appreciate quality of music from a rather objective point of view.

i believe you all miss the point about hifi. a good melody is a good melody. either listened to on a walkman or on a full blown system. if it sounds even better on hifi that's great and something we pay a lot of money for. but it will always remain a substitute.

i even think, some of you even miss the point of music. i've read many comments that people rather stay at home listening to their perfect sounds than visiting a concert with predictably worse sound. these people miss the whole point about music and they frighten me. they are the death of performing artists.

music is sound. alright. but it is also energy and communication. at least between musicians ideally between musicians and audience, too. this special relationship between musicians and their audience can not, rpt NOT, be reproduced on any equipment. it only works once. at the venue. what you get at home at the very best is a very good image of live-experience, of music happening. anyone doubting that has not yet experienced the magic of music. i feel very strongly about that.

i admit that is harder to appreciate quality of music if you're not able to hear the "ghost notes" of a drummer and so on. true. but it is essentially not necessary. people in 66 were unable to appreciate karajan and miles simply because there quipment was not as good as today??? do you think so??? there are so many hifi-reviewers who try to make us think that certain records only make sense on certain equipmetn. utter nonsense.

if you are not able to appreciate the "f***ing" good drumming of whoever on a simple system, i really pity you.

it should always strike you funny, that most musicians, professional musicians, do not give a damn about hifi. there is something within music that's beyond sound. charlie parker's solos are fabulous. and some people can hear it for the reasons that count, others - obviously - can not.

this does not mean, that i am not willing to buy boxes. i will as soon as i can.

Thorsten,

Naturally, a good melody is a good melody, and a crap piece of music will be crap on any system.

When I was younger and had a 'crap' system, I listened to music almost every waking minute, and I enjoyed the music in much the same way I can enjoy 'playing' a tune in my head to myself. And to be honest, I'm still quite amazed that a 100-quid boom box produces what it does - I don't share the view of many here that it's impossible to enjoy music on cheapo systems, it's just that they don't present the whole picture.

I've always enjoyed, criticized and praised music vociferously, long before I cared about equipment. Music has always touched me in rather profound ways. During my student days I played several hundred gigs with other musicians. On stage, the sound is quite often a catastrophe from a 'hifi' point of view, but the interaction between the players and the immediacy of individual players can be magical, which is exactly what you're talking about, I believe. The point I tried to make is that my new equipment helps carry a lot of that over into my living room.

I would like to go into more detail, but haven't the time. In any case, I think your allegations about some of us missing the point about music in general are way off the mark (bordering on the presumptuous, even), and I don't think there's any need to pity me, either

BTW: I don't want to sound smug, but most of my musician friends indeed don't care much about hifi until they come round to my house - until then, they always imagine it being about sound, and not about music.

Thomas

Thorsten

you are giving a very black and white view about the appreciation of music.

you say 'if you are not able to appreciate the "f***ing" good drumming of whoever on a simple system, i really pity you' ... but just before you say 'i admit that is harder to appreciate quality of music if you're not able to hear the "ghost notes" of a drummer and so on'

No one is disputing that you can't appreciate music on a crappy hi-fi. What people are saying is that you can get more out of it with a better Hi-Fi.

Yes - a good melody is a good melody ... but music is a bit more than that ... its the interplay of the musicans, its the way the instruments effect one another, its the way the various individual sounds combine to make a whole. Some of that sublety gets lost on less good systems.
You can write a melody down on a piece of paper ... you can't do that with a performance.

You go on to say effectively that you can only experience music in a live setting. That's a very narrow view. There's plenty of music that doesn't work in a live setting with musicans. Dance music for example, which works best in a club ... being played through a system ... and the better the system, the better it works.

You end with a statement about professional musicans not giving a damn about Hi-Fi. Where do you get this 'fact' from? I know quite a few 'professional musicans' and while they are no as in to Hi-Fi as I am, they all have decent systems, and love to come over to listen to mine.

If you really think that a better Hi-Fi makes no difference to the enjoyment of music ... why do you spend any money on it?

why did i upgrade? simply because it "sounds" better. "sound" is a quality in itself. a few years ago, (bought my first flat earth equipment 11 years ago) i thought i needed better equipment to have more fun listen to my music. i bought it. i do not think so any more. i need better equipment to have more hifi qualities. just recently i switched back to my nait II just for fun and of course immediately heard the differences to the 102/naps/180. yes, it is nice to have that better gear. i did ask myself: "would i have had less fun, had i not bought the 102/180?" probably not. only in terms of hifi. but then a nait II is not a crappy system, of course. i gather i would have had the same amount of joy with the nait II over the years as with the large ensemble. the emotions are there.

btw it's part of my job to simplify and rather paint in black and white than grey. it makes people react. and there ARE threads where people effectively say that it is not possible to enjoy music on a crappy system. i do not say it was anyone of you.

maybe we are not that far apart as you might think. as i wrote: i appreciate better sound. i love to have more details as much as you do. but it never changes my opinion of a record.

the professionals: you know them, i know them. they sometimes say great, but see no need to upgrade for themselves. has anyone been at your place and afterwards went to a dealer and bought kit?

and sorry name for destroying your thread. i will stop now.

God you guys make me laugh, sounds like xps or 82...at the moment the 82 is getting pipped at the post by the xps.

Much as I loathe agreeing with a halfwit (you know who you are) I'd say get the XPS.
I would.

You need to listen to what Fraim does.

It's effect is very different to better black boxes.

There is a logic that says 'Get the best out of what you've got, rather than 70% of more expensive kit'.

As ever; you need a good dealer to explore the options.