CDX nothing without XPS

Franz

Thanks for cheering me up. I have the identical system to you and now have a XPS on order.

I was hoping for good things and I will make sure Mrs Mick reads your letter because she is having the odd little moan. The upgrade to 82 was good but if the XPS beats that, I'm a happy bunny.

I shall sleep a happy man tonight.

Regards

Mick

Dear Mick

Thank you for your reply. I feel honoured that my letter may help you justifying the planned accquisition of your XPS. I am sure you and Mrs Mick will love it. I would not want to be without it anymore.

I have also noticed your preference for whiskey late night? in your profile. I can really appreciate that and think that it is one of the things that make living worthwile- listening to some peacful tunes accompanied by a glass of good whiskey. Unfortunately I cant listen as loud as I would like because then the kids really have to sleep- (but then there is alway the option of headphones).

Regards

Franz

The XPS really brings the CDX to whole new level. I would also stongly recommend getting the CDX on a good support. With a good support the CDX/XPS is very close the CDS2. The CDS2 is better but with your system the differences might not be as important. I am using Mana and would suggest trying a sound frame (approx 255US) otherwise other people have suggested Hutter.

Notice how I worded this message. I didn't want to attract any emotional reactions. Lets see if it works???

Enjoy your XPS, and the increased amount of emotion in the music.

John

I struggled with my CDX for the first six months of ownership. I had it for a 2nd system (CDS1 on the first system) and it could never get to like it. I tried the Vukwich stuff with ball nutters etc. I just didn't like it. That is until it got the XPS. Then it was a whole new game. It finally sound like it was playing music instead of CD's. Mana improved it more.

I couldn't figure out how it got such good reviews as just a bare CDX(Listener, Steropile). The sound is to brittle and bright. Too in your face.

Now it's a great player. Still not a CDS1 (or CDS2) but it really captures your attention and has the right sound.

Arthur Bye

Marcus

I can not honestly comment on the difference between a CDX/XPS with CDSII, as I never did a thorough comparison. I have heard a CDSII a couple times at my dealer, and I did not have the feeling that it is such a big step forward; (I also listened to a CDSI into 52 with 250 SBLs; I think there is no real qualitative difference beteween the CDX/XPS and a CDSI; to me it is a matter of preference -whether you prefer music more relaxed or more focused.

What I feel now with the CDX/XPS is that for the first time I dont want to change something right away. I am truly happy with the way it is.

Dont get me wrong, I am sure there will be an improvent going to the 52 or replacing the CDX with a CDSII.
I am also sure there is a diffrence going active, or getting two monos or even adding a 500 or NBLs or DBLs. I mean there are plenty of possibilities to burn cash. The question I am asking myself is how far do I need to go to get the same emotional satisfaction from playing music.
All I am saying is that having added the XPS for the first time I am relived from this urge that I have to improve something because I am not totally satisfied.

Cheers

Franz

Franz,

Gongrats your upgrade. With a good pre, the XPS makes quite a difference. But don't be fooled by people who can't afford one into thinking the CDX/XPS gets anywhere near the CDS 2. It doesn't.

Also, do you play the Birthday Party's "Deep in the Woods" for your daughter? If so, you should be behind bars.

dave

Franz et al--

I don't think there is any doubt the XPS significantly improves the CDX. However, I think the CDX on its own to be quite good--certainly better than anything else in the price range. It should surprise no one that the CDX/XPS is significa ntly better than a bare CDX; it is also about twice the money ! And I have not had the problems Arthur describes, but I use a Base stand for the CDX.

As someone who also just received an XPS and who has owned a 82/Super, I can say the CDX/XPS into a 72/Hi is significantly better than a CDX into an 82/Super. And I think the CDX/XPS stretches to the CDS2 but doesn't get there--the CDS2 affords more natural dynamics, much greater subtlety, a wider range of expression.

And finally--source first does rule !

Cheers,

Bob

Ride the Light !

Thanks all for friendly comments
Yes, my experience with the XPS clearly shows that Source first does rule.
Yet to show it it does require a good amplification. I think that the addition of the XPS would not have been as dramatic without a decent pre, in my case 82super. I did have the XPS on trial before when I had the CDX running with a Nait 3 and the difference was close to zero. So in retrospect I first added the 82 with the nait changed to a 90 before I swithched to a 250Hi and then SC. I probably would have added the XPS before the SC but then a good deal on a used SC came up so i went for it first. At the end it didnt matter that much because I knew that I would eventually get the XPS anyway. Still nice to experience things oneself rather than just follow "traded wisdom".

dave
Of course I am curious what the CDSII does and eventually I will get one home for a trial to experience the supposed "quantum leap". I am also curious if my wife will similarly get excited about the difference. if so that will be a clear indication that it is really worth the plunge. Before that, however, other expenses are more of an issue.
I didnt know the birthday party before you mentioned it- In fact I had to look it up on "allmusic.com" . After reading its description as "darkest and most challenging post-punk groups to emerge in the early '80s, creating bleak and noisy soundscapes that provided the perfect setting for vocalist Nick Cave's difficult, disturbing stories of religion, violence, and perversity" I can see your point. So, no I did not play " in the dark woods" to my daughter. I only know and very much like the CDs "Boatmans call and The best of... "with many very relaxed tunefull songs.
Your comment also points something out to me that I probably dont do that regularly- listening also to the texts of songs rahther than just to the music. This may be more natural with english as ones native language.
Anyway thanks for pointing it out to me.

Cheers

Franz

[This message was edited by Franz K on WEDNESDAY 31 January 2001 at 10:13.]

Franz,

The CdS 11 is another expense altogether, so enjoy what you have. I was just trying to counter a certain trend on the forum that places the CDS 2 only marginally above, or even at the same level according to taste, players lower in the naim hierarchy.

As for Nick Cave, my old girl friend loved Tender Pray, a mid-career work for cave where he was just starting to mellow out and before he got a bit too sentimental. Amazing stuff. The Birthday Party is another story. Most of the songs are about hacking women to pieces with chain saws etc, hence my sense of alarm. Deep in the Woods is probably the worst in this respect. Not to play on a first date. A lot of lines like:

"I took her from rags right through to stiches
tonight we sleep in seperate ditches"

But I believe its all in jest like the novels of Cormack McCarthy (child of God for example).

I have a friend who only evaluates music on the basis of the lyrics, so naturally he finds instrumental stuff self-indulgent. I'm in the middle. I appreciate good and interesting lyriucs as another level of depth, but I think a song has to sound good before I like it.

dave

Nick Cave and Cormac Mc Carthy: the perfect antidote to stands mania. The Birthday Party's eponymous first album was a great mock gothic masterpiece, I particularly liked the single Release the Bats. Mc Carthy on the other hand produces the real gothic goods especially in Blood Meridien or Sutree. The later trilogy All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the palin are tremendous novels. Old Las Vegas Nick himself tried the same trick with And The Ass saw The Angel . Now much as I think that Nick and Mark E Smith are the last great rock stars he's no novelist.

Johnô

John,

I like the character of the pimp in Cities of the Plane. How totally evil. What he says during the knife fight is mind blowing. Its like Mr Kurtz all over again, but meaner. But in General I like the earlier McCarthy. Outer Dark is astonishing. Thanks to the brits for publishing him. Why is it that us stupid yanks can't recognize our own great artists and have to be told be Europeans who is good. The greet Jazz artists were studying with Ravel and Milhaud before they had any acceptance in the US. Hemmingway, Pound, Eliot, Fitzgerald, all had to go to europe. The Pixies were big in London before anyone but a handfull of college students in Cambridge Mass knew who they were.

But back to the main point, Nick Cave's novel had a lot of imagery from songs like swampland and fears of gun in it. I think this owes a lot to Faulkner's Light in August with Joe Christmas etc. The whole "I went into a town where the people tried to kill me..." But he just isn't a great novelist. Too convoluted with iffy characterization. Interesting read, though. A friend in chicago was working on a book about the history of rock where the birthday party got a whole chapter. His argument was that they took the "I shot my baby dead" theme from blues and pushed it to the logical extreme and hence deserved credit for "extroverting" the violence before only implied in the blues.

I still like Sonny's Burning on Full blast on my CDS 2/52/hicap/headline/Senn HD 600.

Boo to stands posts (power to Dev for pointing this out). Just get a WB Triptych for you source and you'll never have to post again.

Davey

David, Sonnys Buning full on on CDS2 etc. Oh Doctor!! I once saw the Bad Seeds live in Brixton and they played a monumental version of The Mercy Seat building up to a tidal wave of sound at the end. Johnny Cash does a great version on his latest album. His whole American Recordings series is a great masterpiece. Perhaps it doesnt have the sonic boom for you though. I love the idea of your friends book though Ive always thought that Cave took his imagery and ideas from country music especially Johnny Cash. It's that whole Southern USA melding of country/blues/biblical that fascinates all right thinking human beings. The Blood Meridien Mc Carthy really is a reworking of Heart of Darkness, if you havent already try it.On the European idea it took an Englishman Charles Laughton to make Night of The Hunter with Bob Mitchum a movie to be mentioned in the same breath as say a Faulkner novel.

John
(rambling now)

˝

The "Live seeds" CD gives a very good renditionof the band at variouis live venues, and the Mercy Seat is a stormer.

The Murder Ballads CD strikes me as Nick taking the piss out of his earlier darker lyrics and had me laughing out loud more than once.

cheers

Nigel

Spot on with that assessment Nigel, I think the originals are funny too. By the way, Minstrels have you ever tried Mana stands instead of the Royd ones under them? I have Doublets. AAAH NO What am I saying??? Yes nurse I'll come quietly now.

Johnn

Nigel and John,

I like the live Birthday Party album version of Junkyard. Man is that bleak. I saw Nick Cave in LA in 1993. He's quite a terrifying presence on stage. The sound system went and he threw a chair at someone off stage. The newer stuff seems, you are right, a piss take of the older stuff, which is so black it is almost funny. You have to laugh at King Ink and Hamlet, Pow Pow. I still think his first Bad Seeds album is the bleakest. A box for Black Paul is like some nightmarish Berlin 1930s thing mixed with the usual southern gothic themes.

I've read blood meridian. The judge is quite a stunning character. Also reminds me of the orson welles movie touch of evil.

5 weeks till I get my ACT TWOS BTW, I heard the live birthday party CD on my system with WB ACT 1s and it was stunning. So much detail, so much emotion, so much presence, yet strangely for a live album of that recording quality, so very few bad recording artifacts. Any system sounds good with a well recorded CD like Dead Can Dance Into the Labyrinth. But when your system sounds great with a little live birthday party, then its special!

dave

A Touch of Evil is another great movie, especially the recently restored version with that great opening scene. Welles is a marvellous sweating grotesque. Mind you but look how badly Charlton Heston turned out, liberal lawyer to gun toting fascist. Derek Malcolm the excellent Manchester Guardian film critic recently compiled a top 100 films over 100 weekly issues.Both those films were on it. I think he's now published it as a book.

John

Oops Ive just seen your profile Im talking to an expert. The chemi stry professors in my institution do not have maxed out Naim systems or WB actors, I can assure you. By the way Chemistry and all the rest too that quite a renaisance man resume. *

Now youve got me walking around singing Fat little insect.ah. Fat little insect.
‡

[This message was edited by John C on FRIDAY 02 February 2001 at 15:43.]

John,

Thanks for the recomendation. I haven't seen that book, but I'll check it out. Have you seen teh Nick the Stripper video? man is Cave thin! More like a starved grasshopper than a "fat" insect of any kind. I find a lot of Cave's characters in songs amusing, if not totally convoluted. The Hamlet character in Hamlet Pow Pow is hilarious. Turns hamlet on his head. Tried to explain it to a shakespear expert once, but he didn't get it. Kept telling me "Cave doesn't know what he is talking about. Hamlet is a character vexed by his own inactivity and guilt, this song is about a guy running around shooting everything in sight." The guy couldn't see the irony at all.

Davee

Chaps

Yesterday was a rather manic day , I had so much to do with so little time to do it in.

I recently ordered an XPS to add on to my system of CDX / 82 + Supercap / 250 / SBL's.

Audio T in Reading rang to say that it had arrived yesterday at 11.00am and because their installer is on holiday next next and I am off after that for two weeks, I would not be able to have the thing for 3 weeks.

Therefore, I decided to install it myself, I drove at great speed up to Reading, picked it up and was out of the shop in a matter of a few minutes, I did not even have time to chat with Frank Abela.

I got it all set up at 3.30 pm and just had 5 minutes left before I had to go off somewhere else, so I played a Vangelis track just to try it out. I knew Naim stuff needs a good warm up time but the performance was somewhat flat and I felt disappointed with it.

Anyway I had other things to do so I drove off and came back at 5.20 pm and played the same track again and Gentlemen, it blew my socks off.

That 2 hour warm up had done its stuff, the XPS really transformed the CDX.

Unfortunately, I had to attend a bloody function last night which meant getting dressed up and being out of the house for 6.15 pm, so no chance of listening to more music.

I got home at 2.45 am, somewhat knackered and boozed up and went straight to bed.

I usually rise no later than 7.30 am on Sundays, but I did wake up with a mild hangover so stayed in bed until 11.00am.

I then had more rushing about to do, but at 2.00pm today, I sat down and played the same Vangelis track.

I shall not ramble on, I have already done enough, but the 23 hour warm up has just made my system so unbelievably different. I have totally lost the urge to upgrade...I am just very content.

This XPS is the best upgrade ever. Until now, my best upgrade was from 32.5 to 82 plus hicap. This addition of the XPS has surpassed even that.

All I will say is that if you have a CDX, get yourself a XPS, it is that good.

Whoever designed this black box deserves a medal.

I am now returning to listen to more music.

Regards

Happy and contented Mick

Mick wrote:

quote:

---

All I will say is that if you have a CDX, get yourself a XPS, it is that good.

---

Mick:

Your impressions mirror mine(except for the booze and hangover). I think the XPS is required to make the CDX into a real CD player. It's even more important(dare I say it?) than Mana.

Arthur Bye

Hi,

There seems to be a belief that Mana shares the same place in the world of stands that Adam's first sin shared amongst all sins commited thereafter, that somehow Mana is the only way to set up a naim system and that Mana does things that no other stand in existence can do. I tried out Mana recently and it worked, although nowhere near as well as my own stands which provided a faster, more open, more detailed presentation with deeper base and clearer, yet creamier trebble. Mana works fine, but lets ditch this false belief that it is somewhow essential to the performance of a naim system. This is simply not true. In windsor we have a lot of people, influenced by the US auto industry, that say that Ford makes the best cars in the world and that all German and Japanese cars are garbage. Eventually when enough people assert this, then we get what can be referred to as a "team truth" where everyone accepts as truth what has been asserted by a charismatic minority, even though this truth may not in fact be a truth at all. This is what seems to have happened on the forum. Two years ago was a kind of Rennaisance of the forum. The CDS 2 came out. The CD 12 came out. JV was still around and people used base, mana, Townsend, and numerous other stands in an audio "free world". These days I often read such misleading comments as CDX/XPS on Mana is the same as CDS 2 because Mana provides most of what the suspension in the CDS 2 does. The rating of speakers also follows a certain pack bent pattern where only a hanful of speakers approved of by certain members of the forum are considered viable alternatives to Naim. I found out recenty that a handfull of "flat earthers" (whatever the hell this means) up in London Ont were shocked that I was interested in WB speakers and believed this meant I needed to be corrected lest I go astray (strait is the gate and narrow is the path, I guess). It was only when one of the more "respected" members posted that WB speakers sound good that my leaning was granted any credibility. Yet it is I that get the last laugh since I get to listen to my system, while the London crowd will be stuck with their thin vapid set ups for years.

dave

David--

Amen !

Cheers,

Bob

Ride the Light !a

David wrote:

quote:

---

These days I often read such misleading comments as CDX/XPS on Mana is the same as CDS 2

---

David:

I have both the CDS2 and the CDX/XPS. I have tried both on Mana. I do think the CDX is improved by Mana to the extent that it is a worthwhile upgrade. That said however, it still does not approach a CDS2(Mana or not). The CDX/XPS/Mana is a very nice setup but the CDS2 is clearly better. The difference is enough that most any objective listener would hear the differences. I also think the CDS1 is better than the CDX/XPS/Mana, but the differences are more subtle.

Arthur Bye