What's going on?

John,
I was also curious about this player after reading that article. I couldn't seem to find it in the US though - any idea what that model is called here? The only current cheap player I can find is the 5-disc SCD-CE775s (US$199), which is also supposed to be a sonic bargain.
-Dan

Cool!

are there many titles available on SACD yet?

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

Sorry, doesn't match the rest of your Naim kit. You'll just have to keep the CDS2.

I've been away, what happened to your active setup ?

Allan

The only places on the net listing it say between £299 and £330.

Cheers

Nick

Dear All,

i got one too.

It really does put the high end into perspective.

For the money at its full retail price it is a steal so for £120.00 what can i say.

I already have the SCD 777 anyway so i am a convert to SACD. I consider it to be the best digital format available. I also have DVD A as well but it dont cut the mustard.

J.N. makes a good point in his title and as he visited my home this weekend to hear a decent system i hope he is convinced of the merits of high quality SACD as a format.

The catalogue is growing all the time.

A bargain is Eleanor McEvoy YOLA £14.95 and a fabulous piece of music and recording. The cheapest SACD i have bought it is great......

I will as with any new format add discs as and when discs i wish to buy come along.

regards David

I've only done comparisons with ordinary CD's; as I have no SACD's apart from the freebies that came free with the machine.

The CDS is of course better; but you'd be surprised by how little. Putting a £120 player into a 52 ought to be a disaster. It ain't. It stays smooth and refined. Quite remarkable.

Allan; I'm in a state of flux with the system (who isn't?) and moved it into its new location recently and kept it passive to keep it simple. I'm sorely tempted to sell all the amps and go for the new stuff (along with many others here, I'm sure).

David; Yes it's a decent system. It isn't a Naim system.

I'll get into the foxhole now and prepare for the incoming missile!

I daren't compare it to my CD5. That might really annoy me!

The CD5 is still gonna be better. It's the old dilemma of how much one is prepared to pay to effect an improvement.

CD today, is the great leveller. My local Naim dealer visited a friend recently who had just bought a separates system from Mr Richer for £250 and was amazed at how good it sounded.

This just did not happen, when all we had was vinyl. Indeed; also the early days of CD.

I remember a friend paying around £400 for a Toshiba player in 1983. My Sony cassette deck slaughtered it!

quote:

---

The CDS is of course better; but you'd be surprised by how little. Putting a £120 player into a 52 ought to be a disaster. It ain't. It stays smooth and refined. Quite remarkable.

---

I hope you realise this heretical statement puts in jeopardy the whole principal of 'source first' and could lay you open to the unwelcome attention of the thought police

But if you want to cover the cost of your upgrade I'll give you a couple of hundred notes for your old CDS2

David

checked a couple of sites www.unbeatable.co.uk and www.empiredirect.co.uk and they have them on offer at circa £150.

Cheers and happy shopping,

Calum

He's still showing silver ones available on the web-site for £130.

Bit naughty doing this on the Naim forum, but I don't suppose Mr Richer's competition loses them too many sales?

quote:

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Originally posted by NAIMGAIM:
SACD? Yeah it sounds good....but what about the SOFTWARE???

---

NG,

re-read, and you'll see he's talking of the performance of CDs on the Sony.

cheers, Martin

For those of us who don't buy fully into the source first principle, is this not just a case of a cheap box being plugged into a very good system on amazing supports and performing to its absolute fullest potential? You know, a bit like plugging cheap speakers into a hi end amp and finding they perform not too far below your B&W 801s?

We all know about the laws of diminishing returns but perhaps as CD technology moves on the returns become even more dimishing. I suspect if you plug this CD player into a cheaper amp and stack it on the floor it may not seem like such a bargain. Personally, I am not surprised at all that the performance of CD players is converging, maybe I'll be able to afford some hi end stuff soon!

The sony DVD DVP-NS500V worth also a look. This dvd player can play almost any format of silver disk apart the dvd-audio! So you have a dvd player with an SACD player bonus! I thinking buying this one for my HT.

Bernard Paquet

The reason I bought my '670' was that I heard it at a friend's place in a direct comparison with his Sony SACD-1. DAVOHORN was also there and had bought one and compared it with his '777'.

THAT difference (on SACD discs) was all I needed to know.

Another friend, who owns a well respected loudspeaker manufacturing business reckons that although the '670' will contain 'a couple of chips' (as opposed to all the discrete components in a Naim player); they will be the latest shit hot chips, that are the exclusive preserve of huge manufacturers who can specify exactly what they want and buy them in tens of thousands.

Specialist companies, who want a few hundred; do not have that sort of power.

Now I don't doubt your hearing capabilities for one minute but I really would like to know how close this SACD player gets to your CDS2. Really.

BTW You do realise that you could be starting a new trend here. Y'know the kind of thing.. A crappy Sony SACD on a Fraim beats the shit out of a CDS2 on a Fraim errrrrrr well maybe not quite the same thing but you get my drift?

Pete

[This message was edited by P on FRIDAY 13 September 2002 at 20:58.]

Maybe it's a 'low expectation issue'?

Jumping from the £4,000 SACD-1 or the £6,000 CDSII ; one expects a vast reduction in fidelity.

The cheap machine is of course inferior, but is it 50 times worse?

No.

As I said before; to be in this silly game, one has to be prepared to pay a lot of money for relatively small hikes in sound quality.

I just admire the staggering value for money that the cheap machine offers.

Add in 'Random' and 'Display Off' (not forgetting that this is also a surround sound player if you want it) and it's one hell of a machine for the money.

Well,

now to set the cat amongst the pigeons.

Took the sony to a friends house with a full house naim system of many thousands value.

Plugged in the sony compared using several cd sacd cd layer and sacd layer against cds11.

cd to cd there was a much greater sense of musicality and scale with better dynamics. It was also much easier to listen to than the sony.

cd to sacd cd layer (dsd encoded) the differences were less marked and the sony was getting close to if not snapping at the heels of the naim.

cd to sacd well how close do you want ???????????

Of interest playing p simon cd on both players the differences were minimal.

now the naim has been running for a while and has separate power supply and better quality interconnect and mains lead.
the sony was fresh out the box with only a reef knot in the mains lead to help it.

Now the owner of the naim commented that the sony is amazing at the £129.99 price and is inferior to the naim

BUT £6k inferior !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dont think so.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so now what ?

The sony did become fatiguing after a while compared to the naim and it did have numerous failings in its presentation. But if i was not into hifi and listened to the dem i would probably have heard no differences!!!!!!!!!!

now i will have to put it against my sony scd 777 es sacd player. I may end crying into my beer as well.

regards David

Fair comment indeed David.

Sony put on a very commendable show.. I know Naim are developing a replacement for the CDS11 ... it will have to pull out all the stops to be ahead of some very stiff competition at considerably cheaper prices.

Thanks for bringing the machine over!

System was CDS11/52/500/Fraim/NBL by the way.

does anybody know how this player compares to the Sony SCDXB940 as richer sounds have these half price for £200? ....ideal for a second system, could sell my aging 2 box meridian and maybe save enough for a good night out into the bargain!

Having read some of this, I repeated an experiment I did a couple of years ago. I connected a CD walkman (Phillips) into my system.

It cost one twentieth of my 3.5/flatcap but, apart from not being quite so detailed in the treble (but not by much) was otherwise indistinguishable.

A friend is about to buy a cheap DVD, and he has pretty much the same system I do, and if he reports favourably on its CD music performance then I will seriously consider buying one and selling the 3.5.

cheers

Nigel

A Part from from saying things like "the sony did become fatiguing" the Philips had "less treble but not much" they were ok, yeah right enjoy!

Yep - I'm there!!!

Sold off my CD3 a year or so ago and now have a cheapie ($200 USD) panasonic DVD/CD player. Also have a 10+ year old Sony ES CD player that cost $369 new back then. And I have a Sony Discman.

In side-by-side comparisions, the Sony ES trounses the DVD player. Fuller sound and times better. The discman is beat by both.

But...

...the final verdict:

We don't listen to CDs anymore. ALL three cheapie players that I have on hand don't make music. So they are missing the essential ingredient that drives our listening.

I would *really like* to get a Naim DVD/CD player but none seems forthcoming in the near future

- GregB

Insert Witty Signature Line Here

enjoying the music is the goal, otherwise
the numbercounting starts again....

;-) what are your friend telling you if you say
you feed the sbl with only 70watt......

Regards
-mb

Some will not like it, particularly those with a vested interest.

cheers

Nigel

...just make sure you can *live* with the cheapie player - not just that is sounds close in a side-by side.

It can get rather odd. Playing the audiophile game, its easy to get into the habit of playing a smallish number of disks (or records) over and over.

At some point this becomes tiring and, really, there is a loss in the interest in the music. A cheapie player will then sound "close enough" as you are really ready to just stop this nonsense altogehter.

But, in time, the urge to listen to music will return. At the critical moments, the cheapie player will very likely let you down.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I miss my CD3 sorely.

- GregB

Insert Witty Signature Line Here