CDS3 on home demo

This happened yesterday afternoon, thanks to a visit from Chris Koster from NANA. Upon arrival he gently removed it from its flight case (a custom built padded suitcase, and NOT part of its normal vestage) revealing it to be on the handsome side of the Naim CD line- although still utilitarian in construct. The center-well location of the transport was also a refreshing change. I did not get to feel the heft as swapping the CDS3 in and out was managed by Chris K.

Before we even plugged in the S3, Chris surveyed the room and his gaze almost immediately fixed on the DBLs. Shock, horror.... when I had installed phase 2 of the Soundbases I had neglected to make sure they were parallel to the back wall, and they had been toed OUTWARDS, the worst possible implementation. With an additional pair of hands (and arms, and back) restoring them to their favored placement was almost trivial. Then it was time to listen to a few disks with the S2. On came JWs The Hunter, track 2. Damn... this sounds GOOOOD, warm, creamy spacious, PR&T. Maybe I didn't need the S3 after all, only to have untoed the DBLs so that they fired straight back.

The S3 stepped up to the plate and was plugged in to the XPS2 with the regular (not Super)Black Burndy. It had been unplugged and unpowered prior to this. Same disk, same track.
Yes, same track, but entirely different in sound. The sonic signature is very different to the S2, and readily noticeable within the first few bars of the music. A far less colored presentation, crisper, more dynamic, more inflective, more holistic. I made my mind up to order one after about 30 seconds into the first track.
Next up was Nirvanas Unplugged. The ambience of the room and audience was apparent not only in the dead spaces between tracks but during the entire piece of music, even when it got loud. Things sounded spookily like a live performance. The ability to retain the soft subliminal cues during the fortissimos was enticing. Indeed this is EXACTLY the same thing the separated the LP12 from any other players back in the 1970s and 1980s. I thought all was pretty close to perfect, but no....CK strolled over to the DBLs, proclaiming the right one to be tonally 'off'. The grills were removed and the ancient mystical art of checking the suspension bounce of the decoupled tweeters employed. AHA.... they both failed to bounce when perturbed, itself a perturbing finding. This necessitated removed of both tweeters and finding the right amount of coiling of the hookupwires they were connected to. Which in a way exactly mirrors the tension of the tonearm wiring and P-clippage that makes or breaks a LP12. It took maybe 10 minutes and then both tweeters mechanically met CKs seal of satisfaction.
Nirvana was then called back to the stage, and YES.....a harsh subliminal buzzing texture to the upper frequencies was replaced with silky detail and rather more insight. Until then I had been running Boxed Loudspeakers, rather than Decoupled Box Loudspeakers. The final tweak was to pick apart the bundle of NACA5 cables (six wide of course) and horizontally desegregate them. Yet another improvement, although not as large as the attentions paid to the tweeter suspension.

Every piece of music from then on was an active experience. One of the worst remasterings on disk is Van Morrisons Moondance. Why Warner Brothers have failed to reissue this (not to mention Astral Weeks, FMs Rumors, the Doobies The Captain and Me)is beyond me. Even on this murky rolled off mastering Van the Man was sublime. The guitar tag team of Jansch and Renbourne on Pentangle's Sweet Child was captivating. Ahmad Jamals piano attack on the Naim disk entirely realistic. And on it goes.. disk after disk.

I would say this would end the debate of CDS1 vs CDS2. Those few who preferred the drive and flat earth signature of the original CDS1 will find it vastly bettered by the CDS3. Likewise the proponents of soundstaging and inner detail will also find the S3 shows the S2 a clean pair of heels.

SAF/WAF is also high... mine easily heard the differences within the first few bars and asked me when I was getting one. I should have it in about 3 weeks, or so I am told.

At the end of the day I returned the speaker cables from their strewn out topology to a slightly more appealing bundle. Dammit if the sound didn't degrade slightly, and moreso than I had hoped it would. I am going to have them run under the floor in parallel but evenly spaced runs.

Finally...the CDS2/552 versus the CDS3/52. I have had the pleasure of hearing both of these at my abode. Suffice it to say that each is a clear and very obvious improvement on the CDS2/52. For ME the CDS2/552 had more magic than the CDS3/52- which is probably more a reflection of how special the 552 is rather than a failing of the CDS3. I refer interested readers to a thread called 'An Evening with the 552'from several months ago.
I fully expect the CDS3/552 pairing to be utterly devastating. A combination I am greatly reticent to hear until I can afford the 552. Until then.. sign me up for the CDS3.

Oh, CK also left with me a (and right now THE) Super XPS Burndy cable. I will try this out for the next few weeks on the CDS2, and then with the CDS3, when it arrives and breaks in. I will then be able to offer an long term opinion of its respective merits as compared to the regular Black Burndy that is still in my possession.

Ron
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