Dying
Posted by: Johns Naim on 24 May 2002
Yes, well I thought that might get some attention, 'cos I'm dying to know what the AV2 sounds/performs like, and was wondering if anybodys heard it yet. I know one or two have purchased it, but no real comments as yet on the forum.
Would love to hear/read a mini review.
OK, so it's not Kans, and PRaT, but hey, if Naim want to do AV, that's good enough for me, and whilst I love music, I also Like movies, so very interested in how the AV2 performs in it's intended genre, especially compared to competing products, and other solutions in the market place.
And what the advantages are for an relatively artificial medium such as data reduced codecs like DD, reproducing not music per se, but a mix of it and assorted sundry sounds and 'effects', the odd gunshot, explosion, flyover etc, etc,
Is Naims PRaT trademark sound of any advantage with this non musical medium? And is it worth the money over the competing Japanese mainstream products, who seem to have cornered the market for AV. I'm wondering if with such a 'lo-fi' source of the average movie soundtrack, if the Naims quality shines through, over and above say a large (ahem, heresy I hear you cry) top of the line all singing, all dancing brute force and all Denon AV amp for example.
Any comments anyone? Lets hear about Naims new commercial venture, and how well it performs.
Ta muchly,
Cheers,
John
Music is the Naim of the Game
Would love to hear/read a mini review.
OK, so it's not Kans, and PRaT, but hey, if Naim want to do AV, that's good enough for me, and whilst I love music, I also Like movies, so very interested in how the AV2 performs in it's intended genre, especially compared to competing products, and other solutions in the market place.
And what the advantages are for an relatively artificial medium such as data reduced codecs like DD, reproducing not music per se, but a mix of it and assorted sundry sounds and 'effects', the odd gunshot, explosion, flyover etc, etc,
Is Naims PRaT trademark sound of any advantage with this non musical medium? And is it worth the money over the competing Japanese mainstream products, who seem to have cornered the market for AV. I'm wondering if with such a 'lo-fi' source of the average movie soundtrack, if the Naims quality shines through, over and above say a large (ahem, heresy I hear you cry) top of the line all singing, all dancing brute force and all Denon AV amp for example.
Any comments anyone? Lets hear about Naims new commercial venture, and how well it performs.
Ta muchly,
Cheers,
John
Music is the Naim of the Game
Hi Manu,
Thanks for the tip; obvious I know, but as a relative 'newbie' hadn't done a lot of searching on the site. Hey, I was up till dawn reading it all! so I think I made up for it
Out here in OZ there haven't been any magazine reviews as yet, I'm waiting on June HiFi news, but it's not air freighted any more, so will be a wait.
It appears the utimate one system for HiFi and Movies is the addition of the AV2. I'm more interested in what it sounds like as a 'reference', as it's a bit over my budget, nothwithstanding that I'd probably try and advance my system towards active for that amount of $$ before spending it on HT.
The other option seems to be either an add on like the 3 channel amp/processor of yamaha, or a 5 channel receiver 'shoehorned' in with the naim via left and right pre-outs to the Naim pre-power driving (im my case) SBL's leaving the receiver to drive suitable centre and surrounds.
As a 'newbie' I raised this issue in my first post, as the other option for me would be receiver and matched bookshelf spkrs all round, but I've started to go off that idea, as it would mean two systems in the same room. (Aesthetics, and degrading the two channel main system with extra speakers, boxes etc)
How essential is the centre speaker REALLY??
Currently I have the hotseat all to myself when watching/listening. I've got the DVD connected to the preamp (straight stereo to the front L/R) and a line out from the Hicap to a 3 channel prologic amp/decoder. It merely decodes the surround signal and drives the rear surrounds. (small pair of us EPI's)
Is it possible to run DD in 'phantom' mode like this? And for just one person in the hot seat would the center channel have anything much to offer? (DD) In trying to make one system do both tasks (moveis/music) I figure it's going to be compromised somewhere, unless the AV2, so would compromise the AV / HT side of it before the main music system. So thinking about 'shoehorning' in the receiver route, but prefer no center channel if poss.
An interesting thought. When I auditioned DVD Players, one of the things that didn't 'gel' with the arcam, is that it's strengths on music, (which IMHO were superior to the ES9000 Sony I bought) such as Pace, and especially rythmn, didn't seem to mean a lot in the context of a movie soundtrack.
Here, the Sony was clearly superior in the context of putting you in the movie theatre, on the audio side of it, with it's greater clarity, detail, weight in the bass ( with excellent control I might add), and in particular with the speed courtesy of it's portrayal of the leading edge of transients, and it's dynamics generally. Not as 'musical' as the arcam in PRaT terms, but better as a 'presenter' of a movie soundtrack.
On your point of gunshots etc, couldn't agree more, certainly on those sort of sounds, the more musical arcam was too polite and soft sounding in my view. In stereo, and psuedo pro-logic watching a movie on my Sony DVD,Naim and SBL's the dynamics of things like gunshots, explosions etc are truly stunning.
I read a short comment the other day on audio asylum I think it was, that rang bells, and got the grey matter thinking. I don't think from what I've heard so far, that HT is anywhere near as critical soundwise as HiFI, nor with the prescence of visual input, perhaps does it really need to. Something that very much surprised me when auditioning the arcam, was how it's very rythmic way with music actually worked against it in movie context.
I often found it was so musical and involving from that point of view, that it distracted ones attention from the visual element, bringing about a sort of visual/auditory dissonance if that makes any sense. What would be your, or anyone else's experiences/thoughts on this. I've included the short comment I mentioned from Audio Asylum, would be most interested in yours and anyones comments.
Posted by sam9 on March 14, 2002 at 15:58:29
In Reply to: how to incorporate high end 2 channel into HT system? posted by sa_miller on March 04, 2002 at 18:28:04:
I'm not convinced that high-end audiophile signal processing is worth while. If you are watching a movie on DVD and it is good movie you shouldn't be doing a lot of critical listening to the audio. I listened once to an interview with Danny Elfman (score for Batman, Beetlejuice, etc.). He said in essence that if you become aware of the his work, either he or the director (or both) has failed.
That said I would suggest a modest cost DVD player and modest cost AVR (WITH PRE-OUTS!). Keep everthing else the way you have it. Hook the DVD player to the AVR. Run the AVR L&R main pre-oute to the Rogue, assuming you have not used up all the line level inputs. Drive the center and rear channels from the AVR.
Result: For two channel stereo use the equipment you know have -- nothing changes. For films on DVD use the DVDP, the AVR and let your present system handle the L&L mains. I'd bet this will give you better sound than most ground up pure HT systems.
Anyway, that was the comment, don't know if I should be 'quoting' someone else, but, it kind of geled with me given my experiences auditioning Arcam, Sony and assorted DVD players etc.
Best Regards,
John
Music is the Naim of the Game
Thanks for the tip; obvious I know, but as a relative 'newbie' hadn't done a lot of searching on the site. Hey, I was up till dawn reading it all! so I think I made up for it
Out here in OZ there haven't been any magazine reviews as yet, I'm waiting on June HiFi news, but it's not air freighted any more, so will be a wait.
It appears the utimate one system for HiFi and Movies is the addition of the AV2. I'm more interested in what it sounds like as a 'reference', as it's a bit over my budget, nothwithstanding that I'd probably try and advance my system towards active for that amount of $$ before spending it on HT.
The other option seems to be either an add on like the 3 channel amp/processor of yamaha, or a 5 channel receiver 'shoehorned' in with the naim via left and right pre-outs to the Naim pre-power driving (im my case) SBL's leaving the receiver to drive suitable centre and surrounds.
As a 'newbie' I raised this issue in my first post, as the other option for me would be receiver and matched bookshelf spkrs all round, but I've started to go off that idea, as it would mean two systems in the same room. (Aesthetics, and degrading the two channel main system with extra speakers, boxes etc)
How essential is the centre speaker REALLY??
Currently I have the hotseat all to myself when watching/listening. I've got the DVD connected to the preamp (straight stereo to the front L/R) and a line out from the Hicap to a 3 channel prologic amp/decoder. It merely decodes the surround signal and drives the rear surrounds. (small pair of us EPI's)
Is it possible to run DD in 'phantom' mode like this? And for just one person in the hot seat would the center channel have anything much to offer? (DD) In trying to make one system do both tasks (moveis/music) I figure it's going to be compromised somewhere, unless the AV2, so would compromise the AV / HT side of it before the main music system. So thinking about 'shoehorning' in the receiver route, but prefer no center channel if poss.
An interesting thought. When I auditioned DVD Players, one of the things that didn't 'gel' with the arcam, is that it's strengths on music, (which IMHO were superior to the ES9000 Sony I bought) such as Pace, and especially rythmn, didn't seem to mean a lot in the context of a movie soundtrack.
Here, the Sony was clearly superior in the context of putting you in the movie theatre, on the audio side of it, with it's greater clarity, detail, weight in the bass ( with excellent control I might add), and in particular with the speed courtesy of it's portrayal of the leading edge of transients, and it's dynamics generally. Not as 'musical' as the arcam in PRaT terms, but better as a 'presenter' of a movie soundtrack.
On your point of gunshots etc, couldn't agree more, certainly on those sort of sounds, the more musical arcam was too polite and soft sounding in my view. In stereo, and psuedo pro-logic watching a movie on my Sony DVD,Naim and SBL's the dynamics of things like gunshots, explosions etc are truly stunning.
I read a short comment the other day on audio asylum I think it was, that rang bells, and got the grey matter thinking. I don't think from what I've heard so far, that HT is anywhere near as critical soundwise as HiFI, nor with the prescence of visual input, perhaps does it really need to. Something that very much surprised me when auditioning the arcam, was how it's very rythmic way with music actually worked against it in movie context.
I often found it was so musical and involving from that point of view, that it distracted ones attention from the visual element, bringing about a sort of visual/auditory dissonance if that makes any sense. What would be your, or anyone else's experiences/thoughts on this. I've included the short comment I mentioned from Audio Asylum, would be most interested in yours and anyones comments.
Posted by sam9 on March 14, 2002 at 15:58:29
In Reply to: how to incorporate high end 2 channel into HT system? posted by sa_miller on March 04, 2002 at 18:28:04:
I'm not convinced that high-end audiophile signal processing is worth while. If you are watching a movie on DVD and it is good movie you shouldn't be doing a lot of critical listening to the audio. I listened once to an interview with Danny Elfman (score for Batman, Beetlejuice, etc.). He said in essence that if you become aware of the his work, either he or the director (or both) has failed.
That said I would suggest a modest cost DVD player and modest cost AVR (WITH PRE-OUTS!). Keep everthing else the way you have it. Hook the DVD player to the AVR. Run the AVR L&R main pre-oute to the Rogue, assuming you have not used up all the line level inputs. Drive the center and rear channels from the AVR.
Result: For two channel stereo use the equipment you know have -- nothing changes. For films on DVD use the DVDP, the AVR and let your present system handle the L&L mains. I'd bet this will give you better sound than most ground up pure HT systems.
Anyway, that was the comment, don't know if I should be 'quoting' someone else, but, it kind of geled with me given my experiences auditioning Arcam, Sony and assorted DVD players etc.
Best Regards,
John
Music is the Naim of the Game
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your post, was very interested in your comments. I'm hoping to get to my dealer over the next week or so to have a listen, as they've got one in stock, but I'm carless, and they're a long way out by PT; I really identified with your comment about bringing out the emotion in things, I assume dialogue, sound effects etc, certainly that's a key atribute of Naim for me with it's musical performance. If it turns out to be as good re that sort of involvement with movies as it is with music, I'm going to be in for a tough time, as i can't afford it at the moment, and am hoping that a somewhat cheaper route will bring some of the fun and satisfaction. If not, then, I'll have to start either buying lottery tickets, or put up with my 'pseudo surround' as used at the present.
Cheers,
John
Music is the Naim of the Game
Thanks for your post, was very interested in your comments. I'm hoping to get to my dealer over the next week or so to have a listen, as they've got one in stock, but I'm carless, and they're a long way out by PT; I really identified with your comment about bringing out the emotion in things, I assume dialogue, sound effects etc, certainly that's a key atribute of Naim for me with it's musical performance. If it turns out to be as good re that sort of involvement with movies as it is with music, I'm going to be in for a tough time, as i can't afford it at the moment, and am hoping that a somewhat cheaper route will bring some of the fun and satisfaction. If not, then, I'll have to start either buying lottery tickets, or put up with my 'pseudo surround' as used at the present.
Cheers,
John
Music is the Naim of the Game