Naim CD2 vs newer

Posted by: Twelveeyedfish on 20 April 2003

The CD2 is never mentioned on here, I was curious if some of you more old skool naim freaks had anything to say about it. I'm a fan of the old skool but I find the 3 series kind of the oldest I'll go just on principle - ie it's not old! I wonder if I might appreciate the older player more.

Thanks for any input - I'll update my profile with my system soon. I've returned to Naim after moving out from my folks home

) It's gonna be great :0D

I'm trying not to compare it against the CDS range because they're unaffordable (student here!)

Thanks

Andrew

Posted on: 20 April 2003 by Tim Jones

I had a CD2 for about three years before upgrading to CDS2. I liked it a lot. In fact I sang its praises, in an increasingly boring way on this forum, against the CDX, which I though was plodding and muddy in comparison.

It's one of the last old-school Naim players with a 16-bit Philips TDA1541 DAC. Most had a CDM9 mech, but some of the early ones had the slightly better CDM9 Pro mech. If you mail Naim with the serial number they might be nice and tell you which yours has.

I thought it was one of the best CD players ever for rock and dance music. It's incredibly pacy and focused, but doesn't have a lot of warmth. If you want to take the edge off the sound, or like your Brahms, you might try a compliant support under it. I found a Townsend Seismic Sink made it sound a bit more cuddly.

Perhaps too much is read into the differences between CD players, but I think the CD2 certainly counts as the last player to contain Naim's original implementation of CD replay - the same implementation that won over so many who swore they'd never buy one of the newfangled digital beasties.

Enjoy.

Posted on: 20 April 2003 by markcas

Welcome to the forum Andrew,

Had a CD2 for 6 years. I really enjoyed it with my 82 hi-cap 180 combo. When I decided to upgrade I listened to a CDX, which I found to be only slightly more musical and less digital than my CD2. Then I listened to the CDX+XPS, wow that’s way better. Should have gone home at that point but I couldn’t resist. I ended up going home with a CDS2 and a Supercap. Anyway, there probably isn’t that much difference in price between a CD2 and a CDX so, if I were you, I’d go for a CDX. It will sound better with all kinds of music and can be upgraded with an XPS later, a CD2 cannot. Have not listened to the original CDS so can’t comment on that. But if it’s anything like the CDS2, don’t listen to it until you can buy, because you’ll be depressed until you own one.

Cheers,

Mark.