Dev's dem of a 552/500 vs 52/135
Posted by: Dev B on 10 December 2002
On Saturday, I went for a demonstration of the NAC552/NAC500 versus a NAC52/2x135's at Grahams. The system was fronted by a CDS2 and the speakers were Naim SBLs. From what I had read here (...'it's brilliant') and on other places (...'my fuses are more of an upgrade than this £22k amp') I was curious to hear how much better the new amplifier combination was compared to what I have at home. I also wanted to understand how much better (or worse!) the new combination was over and above the current Salisbury gold standard. Jude at Grahams dutifully obliged, partly because they are mostly responsible for my sistem, and some of my Jazz collection, and partly because I haven't been for a serious hifi dem for years.
To put my audio history into perspective. I bought my present amp and speaker combination (52/135/SBL) about seven years ago and have not upgraded. I bought the NAT01 around the same time. On my other sources, I have gone in round in circles on my record player (Naimed LP12 - Phonosophie - Well Tempered - Naimed LP12) and stands (Sound Org - Mana - Base - Quadraspire - Projekt - Mana) while I have steadily upgraded my CD player: (CDI - CDS 1 - CDS 2). When the CDS2 came out in 1998 I bought one and but apart from that I haven't really felt the need upgrade anything (apart from consumables like MC cartridges) since 1998.
I have also moved about four times in the last seven years and am pretty familiar with how the sound of a sistem changes in a room, and how room accounts for say 60%, of the sound that you get. I am happy with the sound of my sistem, and I have heard many other sistems (friends, nerds from this and Mana forums) so I get to make comparisons from time to time.
I guess the other thing to say is that I like the Naim sound it is fast, dynamic and breathtaking - but not fatiguing - I also like refinement and beauty. Other branded sistems that I have heard often have one or two things that I like and I go 'oh yeah, that's great' but then fall down in another important musical area at the next bassline.
I am digressing, preamble above is to give those readers who don't know me, some idea of my limited audio credibility where I am sort of coming from. Lastly I should say is that I can't afford a hifi upgrade for the foreseeable future, marriage, a new baby and London living have put paid to that! (Thank God). But I can indulge in regular Music binges and have a CD buying frenzy every so often.
I took the following CD's into the dem:
- A CDR of Julian Joseph's Album 'The language of truth', done from my days when I had an Well Tempered TT. A fabulous piece of music with great interplay between Julian's piano playing and the rest of the quartet
- Truby Trio - DJ Kicks: A great compilation on the excellent DJ Kicks series from the Studio K7! label out of Berlin. Think European Jazzy House and with a great tempo and some uplifting vocal tracks and you will get my drift.
- Grooverider - FabricLive CD7: The master returns with an awesome selection of drum and bass, menacing basslines and powerful beats. A sprinkling of softer stuff too but real quality
- Pat Metheny Group - Speaking of Now. I like Pat Metheny, ok, I liked him much more when he was on ECM but I like it the first song okay - the rest of the album is okayish
- Nils Petter Molvaer - Solid Ether. This is modernist Northern European Jazz, with some clever innovations. I think his first album 'Khmer' was marginally stronger (i.e. every track was more continuous), but Solid Ether has a lot of merit.
Joel Benford used to use a fantastic analogy to describe why some things might sound less impressive but have real musical merit. 'Music vs. Sound'. When I read his description, it explained by I liked the Naim sound better than other brands, but it also explained why I can enjoy listening to my £60 Sony CD walkman and the Car Stereo. It also explained how some of my bootleg CD's of raves sounded amazing even though the 'sound' was, frankly, shite. In essence, Joel talked about how Music was about the quality of the relationship between the music notes and how these flow into each other. Sound, in contrast, was more about namby-pamby stuff like 'bass, treble, sound staging, etc'.
I don't know about you, but I always fall into the trap of listening to the "sound" first, but then something twigs in my head that the "music" doesn't sound right. It's a bit like a woman who wears a wonderbra I suppose, looks great, but not alot going on inside
The first thing I noticed was the sense of musical flow. I was listening to it and I thought 'bloody hell this is really fast'. The notes really flew along, all in time. There was real propulsion to the music. I cannot emphasize this enough. The presence of the music was very real and immediate and you were tempted to turn the volume up because it was urging you to do so. Also the sound was smooth with no sense of harshness or strain. The Grooverider CD has some pretty evil synthy type noises. And they can sound harsh, but they need to do so to carry the sense of emotion and energy of the muscial piece. On the 552/500, the weird thing was that the harshness was totally gone, but the energy and emotion was still there, in fact it was heightened. I wanted to turn the volume up, but 11o'clock on the volume control was loud enough for the Shoskatovich namby's in the next dem room. On Jazz, the amps repeated the same trick, but with incredible clarity to each of the instruments and the performers. This amplifier combination really opens out the window. My only problem was that the SBL seemed at the limit of it's capabilities - the 'scale' of the sound with SBL's was 'NBL like', but we were approaching is limits. Or were we? I cannot help but thinking what active would do for this combination. But the 552/500 SBLs can do scale, but it was no DBL in this respect.
We then moved back to the 52/135 combination. Familiar ground. In comparison, and I stress the in comparison bit, this combination was not as fast nor did it have the same degree of musical presence or propulsion. Also the 'flow' of the notes was reduced. The music seemed a bit disjointed - the notes stopped and started, and stopped and started, and stopped and started again. Also there was a bit more coloration. That evil Grooverider noise attracted more attention to itself. The good news was that my 52/135 did sound more refined than the dem one, and the combination was still musical. I liked it. But I did like the 552/500 a hell of a lot more, and if I had the a spare money (and I don't) I would have one tomorrow. I really would. I guess my only real reservation about the dem was that I felt a more fuller range speaker is needed to exploit the abilities of the amp.
I have just realised that I have gone on a bit here. I suppose I should add all the usual caveats: YMMV, IMHO, before I get accused of being a Naimy Laimy or whatever.
regards,
Dev.
To put my audio history into perspective. I bought my present amp and speaker combination (52/135/SBL) about seven years ago and have not upgraded. I bought the NAT01 around the same time. On my other sources, I have gone in round in circles on my record player (Naimed LP12 - Phonosophie - Well Tempered - Naimed LP12) and stands (Sound Org - Mana - Base - Quadraspire - Projekt - Mana) while I have steadily upgraded my CD player: (CDI - CDS 1 - CDS 2). When the CDS2 came out in 1998 I bought one and but apart from that I haven't really felt the need upgrade anything (apart from consumables like MC cartridges) since 1998.
I have also moved about four times in the last seven years and am pretty familiar with how the sound of a sistem changes in a room, and how room accounts for say 60%, of the sound that you get. I am happy with the sound of my sistem, and I have heard many other sistems (friends, nerds from this and Mana forums) so I get to make comparisons from time to time.
I guess the other thing to say is that I like the Naim sound it is fast, dynamic and breathtaking - but not fatiguing - I also like refinement and beauty. Other branded sistems that I have heard often have one or two things that I like and I go 'oh yeah, that's great' but then fall down in another important musical area at the next bassline.
I am digressing, preamble above is to give those readers who don't know me, some idea of my limited audio credibility where I am sort of coming from. Lastly I should say is that I can't afford a hifi upgrade for the foreseeable future, marriage, a new baby and London living have put paid to that! (Thank God). But I can indulge in regular Music binges and have a CD buying frenzy every so often.
I took the following CD's into the dem:
- A CDR of Julian Joseph's Album 'The language of truth', done from my days when I had an Well Tempered TT. A fabulous piece of music with great interplay between Julian's piano playing and the rest of the quartet
- Truby Trio - DJ Kicks: A great compilation on the excellent DJ Kicks series from the Studio K7! label out of Berlin. Think European Jazzy House and with a great tempo and some uplifting vocal tracks and you will get my drift.
- Grooverider - FabricLive CD7: The master returns with an awesome selection of drum and bass, menacing basslines and powerful beats. A sprinkling of softer stuff too but real quality
- Pat Metheny Group - Speaking of Now. I like Pat Metheny, ok, I liked him much more when he was on ECM but I like it the first song okay - the rest of the album is okayish
- Nils Petter Molvaer - Solid Ether. This is modernist Northern European Jazz, with some clever innovations. I think his first album 'Khmer' was marginally stronger (i.e. every track was more continuous), but Solid Ether has a lot of merit.
Joel Benford used to use a fantastic analogy to describe why some things might sound less impressive but have real musical merit. 'Music vs. Sound'. When I read his description, it explained by I liked the Naim sound better than other brands, but it also explained why I can enjoy listening to my £60 Sony CD walkman and the Car Stereo. It also explained how some of my bootleg CD's of raves sounded amazing even though the 'sound' was, frankly, shite. In essence, Joel talked about how Music was about the quality of the relationship between the music notes and how these flow into each other. Sound, in contrast, was more about namby-pamby stuff like 'bass, treble, sound staging, etc'.
I don't know about you, but I always fall into the trap of listening to the "sound" first, but then something twigs in my head that the "music" doesn't sound right. It's a bit like a woman who wears a wonderbra I suppose, looks great, but not alot going on inside
The first thing I noticed was the sense of musical flow. I was listening to it and I thought 'bloody hell this is really fast'. The notes really flew along, all in time. There was real propulsion to the music. I cannot emphasize this enough. The presence of the music was very real and immediate and you were tempted to turn the volume up because it was urging you to do so. Also the sound was smooth with no sense of harshness or strain. The Grooverider CD has some pretty evil synthy type noises. And they can sound harsh, but they need to do so to carry the sense of emotion and energy of the muscial piece. On the 552/500, the weird thing was that the harshness was totally gone, but the energy and emotion was still there, in fact it was heightened. I wanted to turn the volume up, but 11o'clock on the volume control was loud enough for the Shoskatovich namby's in the next dem room. On Jazz, the amps repeated the same trick, but with incredible clarity to each of the instruments and the performers. This amplifier combination really opens out the window. My only problem was that the SBL seemed at the limit of it's capabilities - the 'scale' of the sound with SBL's was 'NBL like', but we were approaching is limits. Or were we? I cannot help but thinking what active would do for this combination. But the 552/500 SBLs can do scale, but it was no DBL in this respect.
We then moved back to the 52/135 combination. Familiar ground. In comparison, and I stress the in comparison bit, this combination was not as fast nor did it have the same degree of musical presence or propulsion. Also the 'flow' of the notes was reduced. The music seemed a bit disjointed - the notes stopped and started, and stopped and started, and stopped and started again. Also there was a bit more coloration. That evil Grooverider noise attracted more attention to itself. The good news was that my 52/135 did sound more refined than the dem one, and the combination was still musical. I liked it. But I did like the 552/500 a hell of a lot more, and if I had the a spare money (and I don't) I would have one tomorrow. I really would. I guess my only real reservation about the dem was that I felt a more fuller range speaker is needed to exploit the abilities of the amp.
I have just realised that I have gone on a bit here. I suppose I should add all the usual caveats: YMMV, IMHO, before I get accused of being a Naimy Laimy or whatever.
regards,
Dev.