My System Sounds ****.

Posted by: garyi on 23 February 2002

Just returned from bristol and its all been put into context.

Now I know a lot of you folks like to get all technical and compare things and rubbish things etc etc, but if anyone that visited the naim room today wants to a pipe up and say it sounded crap then you are a div.

Thats all.

Posted on: 23 February 2002 by Martinm

I fully agree. I got home to chuck some tunes on and had to turn it off again.
Put the old Dido CD to see how it compared and it just demonstrated how good the stuff was today!

Oh my word am I gonna have to get a good job when I've finished studying!

Cheers
Martin

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Lightkeeper

Sorry guys, but I will stop to believe in your knowledge about Naim when I read which music you listen...Dido, Prodigy, Seal, Oasis.
You don't neeed Naim to listen to this crap.

Ozren, an audiophile

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by pm

Ozren,

Oh puleeeze..... Let's leave the music snobbery at home.

Of all the people Ozren...... hasn't intolerence caused enough problems in your part of the world ??????????

Grow up a little.

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Steve G

quote:
Originally posted by Ozren Herold:

Ozren, an audiophile

Spelling mistake, should read "Ozren, an arsehole".

Regards
Steve

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Thomas K

I don't particularly love any of the groups/bands mentioned above, but that comment is just as silly as that of your dealer who says people should only listen to classical music.

Thomas

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Martinm

Its each to their own as far as music is concerned Ozren. Like most people here, from what I can gather, I have a quite diverse taste.
n fact the last three albums I bought were Jaques Loussier, Pink Floyd, and Stained.

I'm sure if we looked we could find some classics in your collection to!

Chill out and enjoy what you enjoy cos thats what I'm doing!

Martin

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Frank Abela

Your system should not sound like crap and can be improved in my experience.

Suggestion 1:

Take the angle iron stand under your CDi and put it on the other side of the room. Place the CDi directly on the (wooden?) floor. Make sure the angle iron is far away from the system, preferably not in the room, but 4 metres will do.

Is it better?

Possibly not to your taste - add the wooden block/glass thingie you've got so you brighten the sound up (you seem to like that, given the nature of what you've done so far).

If I'm right you'll find the system generally less noisy, cleaner, more resolution and better pace.

For the crazy test, play a track. Then grab the angle iron thing and bring it close to the system. If you can't hear a difference, then my mistake and apologies for making you do the work. The best way is to get a friend to simply move it towards and away from the system.

Suggestion 2:

Earth the SBLs:

Take a reasonably good plug with a shiny earth pin (doesn't need to be new, just in good health and cleaned up). Connect the earth pin in the plug to two lengths of wire (good basic cable - not NACA5, but not bell wire). Connect the other ends of the lengths of wire to the bases of the SBLs. I'd simply attach to the lock nut of one of the spikes. Plug into the wall. Try it - it may make a significant difference and it may not. It does depend on the system circumstances.

Suggestion 3 (money involved so stop reading here:)

At some stage, try a NAPSC for the 102. It seems to clean things up quite a bit when I do it.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Steve Toy

My system was sounding like a bag of shite after visiting TC last week, but Stallion just came round and changed all that...

I'm off to listen to some music, so I'll post more details of the transformation to my system later.

Thankyou Marco.

Regards,

Steve.

The proof of the pudding...

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Chris Brandon

Frank,

This is one that I have not heard of before,do you think that such an approach would be beneficial to Ela's ? (or is it likely to work better with the SBL's due to the wider spread of the metalwork ?)

(....and before anyone asks,I lost my natural scepticism of such tweakery quite some time ago as some of this stuff actually does work !)

Regards

Chris

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by garyi

I was joking of course my systems not crap, I love it to bits every thing it does is great in my eyes and indeed to many others. I refer only to the fact the kit at the show was so much better do you see?

Something to aspire too if you will.

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Top Cat

When do we get to hear about this mystery performance enhancing product? It sounds kinda like audio viagra...

[bitch mode]

Oh, and I had a sneaky peek for the first time in ages at the Mana forum - interesting how the blinkered swine is still banging on about my crap system... oh, how fun it must be to be a pig, living in shit and believing all that he writes... I just feel sorry for the children...

[/bitch mode]

Miaow!

Anyway, I should have a loaner CDS-II/XPS by the end of the week - reports coming up as soon as I get a chance to put it through its paces...

Excited, now...

TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Frank Abela

I so wanted you to try the tweaks!

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Lightkeeper

Mr PM and Steve !

I am not listening only classical music and I am not listening no matter what of classical music.
I listen classical music sometimes, but I also have 7 times more other discs (cca 800 alltogether). I like King Crimson, Wisbone Ash, Savoy Brown, Fleetwood Mac (only with Peter Green, because after, they sounds like Dido)...
Yes I also like Pink Floyd but nothing after Dark Side Of The Moon. I agree that above discs are not recorded as today technology let, but they just sounded right and my Naim place musicians right where each one of them should be in my room.
I also have a lot interesting "audiophile" cds from MFSL, Mapleshade, VTL, Chesky, Waterlilly...
It seems that people go mainstream, forum go mainstream and Naim go mainstream.

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Steve G

quote:
Originally posted by Top Cat:

Oh, and I had a sneaky peek for the first time in ages at the Mana forum - interesting how the blinkered swine is still banging on about my crap system... oh, how fun it must be to be a pig, living in shit and believing all that he writes... I just feel sorry for the children...

He seems to have shut up now after I had a go at him though. I even got support from Stumo in the end...

Regards
Steve

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Top Cat

Must arrange your visit for CDS-II/XPS demo.

TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Steve Toy

quote:
but they just sounded right and my Naim place musicians right where each one of them should be in my room.

If you are so bothered about where your musicians sit or stand, then you should sell your Naim and get you some Musical Faithless - the tuneless wonder that does great imaging.

Having just come back from the Bristol Show, I can safely say that the MF sounded shite. It wasn't doing anything wrong, it was just lifeless, tuneless and boring.

The Exposure demo was very impresive - and that CD player ought to cost more than 600 quid.

Of course, the Naim CDS2/552/500/SL2s was the best, and I enjoyed hearing it from the front row.
It is definitely not for the pipe and slippers (MF) brigade.

I especially liked the Doors track.

Regards,

Steve.

The proof of the pudding...

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by garyi

I will have a go at the remoal of the stand tweak as it costs nothing to try! However my loving girlfriend has limits and a cd player on the floor crosses the line! So I will have to think of something else should the tweak work.

I will have to wait for the NASPC, I have just ordered the new flat panel imac, and my credit card is reeling from the attack!

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Steve Toy

I'll give you a bell...

Regards,

Steve.

The proof of the pudding...

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Steve G

quote:
Originally posted by Top Cat:
Must arrange your visit for CDS-II/XPS demo.

I'm not likely to be in this evening until quite late on but I'll drop you an email with my office number. I'd give you a call myself but I managed to nuke my old emails by accident and lost yours and James' number.

Regards
Steve

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Alex S.

Not a wind up, but how far do you think iron needs to be away from equipment before its negative effects are negated? Some iron I can play with, other stuff is fixed.

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Peter Stockwell

quote:
Of course, the Naim CDS2/552/500/SL2s was the best, and I enjoyed hearing it from the front row.
It is definitely not for the pipe and slippers (MF) brigade.

I like my slippers! Does that mean I have to get a radiogram with good tone ?

Peter

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by Ade Archer

quote:
Ozren, an audiophile

I own Naim gear because an audiophile is the last thing I want to be.

Ade

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by ken c

interesting. i dont know whether this test will highlight something i found completely accidentally -- when i removed by soundstyle cd rack from near my system a week or so ago. if its the same effect, whatever it is, be prepared for a HUGE difference. but as i said last time, the space in front of oen of the sbl's is now much more open -- so this could simply be acoustic improvement, or my system getting better all of a sudden, or me hallucinating again. there has been no change to my system since then -- so this is a very prolonged hallucination period. i like it!!!
there is no suggestion here that angle iron is a "bad thing" -- my experiment was nothing to do with angle iron at all.

Suggestion 2:

Earth the SBLs:

now this is very interesting!!! like many other things, i simply dont get it. if my hifi wasnt sounding good, i would definitely try it -- but i am in non-tweak mode right now -- preferring to enjoy things as they are... i am intrigued though... anyone try it please let us know.

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 25 February 2002 by garyi

I too am not interested in earthing the speakers.

I thought the whole point of naim kit was a single earth reference, normally through the CD player, (which it is). Surely putting earth points at the speakers is nothing short of pointless. All I can think of is that it may stop static?

I am probably wrong about the earthing thing, I am slowly learning that earthing has something to do with the signal as well. Either way I shant be 'plugging' the speakers in, even to try.

Presuambly as well this extra wire is infact more metal into the equation, something I thought we were removing?