Has anyone experienced this?

Hello Massimo,

In my experience full Naim systems have the ability as you say to "stop what you're doing and come listening to me", then after about a CD I say to myself, this is now annoying me!
IMO one has to spend a serious amount of money on Naim equipment (full Naim System) to have a similar presentation to what you are experiencing at your brother-in-laws.

Overall I believe it is the speakers and cables that could be making the difference that you are experiencing. Speakers are very personnal thing, and it takes alot of time to find the right pair.

I suppose the question is, which one would you prefer to live with, your brother-in-laws systems presentation of the music or your systems presentation of the music?


Cheers

James

Hello James,

thanks for your reply. Yours is not an easy question, because I suspect that my own instinctive listening criteria change when I am at home and when I am at my brother-in-laws, meaning that I usually tend to relax more, to be less present to myself if I am at somebody else's, then assuming more easily a >social< attitude to listening as opposite to the private, analytical one I have when at home.
I could also say that I tend to be less critical to things that don't belong to me, that don't mirror me, as I have said, so perhaps I could answer to you that it is not the system's presentation that I really enjoy when I am at my brother-in-laws, but my own attitude.

Yet, the analytical component is so rooted in my life, and the >social< one so transient, so immaterial (please don't think I am an hermit or a potential criminal!), that I would never give my system's presentation up.
After all, the last speakers I had or have auditioned in my living room were Marten Design MilesII, SBLs, Allaes, Arivas and n-Sats - all of them very >objective<, fast, monitor speakers with the only exception of the Arivas, which to my ears had nothing to do with Naim and that I could never get myself to like.

So, in a way I think I have answered to you.

Cheers,

Massimo

Hello Massimo,

I find this analysis extremely interesting.
I understand that one's situation can affect judgement of the presentation of the music.
I wonder what the outcome would be if the system's were reversed, or even if your brother-in-law came over for a social gathering to your home and played the music which sounds so unfamiliar to you after hearing it on his system.

Analysing the situation further, the difference in presentation could also affect the way people listen to music, certain systems/speakers could make you want to analyse the music into the merits of the equipment and not the music, where other systems/speaker set ups do the opposite.

We should get Naim to have a Leather couch room, for the analytical amongst us.

Look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Cheers,

James

I have treated my system like an instrument, in that I pay particular attention to articulation, harmonics and dynamics. Having achieved the balance I desired, all attention is focused on the music.

Every instrument has it's own voice, affected by the tastes of the instrument builder, nationality included.

There are many different correct answers. Every instrument affects some compromise. For everything you gain, something else gives ground.

It's not always easy to decide preferences, which is why we make changes. You might hear something different that changes those preferences.

But after a while, the tendency is to accept some solution, and focus your attention completely on the music you listen to. At least I hope so.

quote:

Originally posted by James E. Avison:

We should get Naim to have a Leather couch room, for the analytical amongst us.

Cheers,

James

That would be a great read.

I don't know, I have thought about it for so long.
The fact seems to be that I can enjoy music on stereo systems more in other people's places, because I don't identify with their gear, while I seem to do it with mine.

In time, I'm growing a suspicion that I can't really enjoy music. My capacity to enjoy music spontaneously, emotionally seems to have disappeared in favour of a very acute attitude to sound in itself.

In a way, it's a perverse fear that if I give in to the pleasure of plain music I may lose some interesting part of it, like texture, timbres, structure. It is crazy, it should sensibly be the reverse, shouldn't it?

I am not sure that I get any real pleasure from listening to CDs - and it's not an issue with the nature of digital sound. I get most of my music from an Internet radio box plugged into a Tivoli model One as amplifier, during the day: music that is broadcasted - that is, not of my choice and therefore having nothing to do with me - seems to work better for me than music I choose to hear; not the ideal basis for setting up a good stereo system, I think.

I am perplexed. Perhaps it's some kind of pathology. Had I known it a few years ago, I would have spared money.

Thanks for your contributions,

cheers,
M.

Might i make a suggestion? Should you wish you could sell your current boxes and buy a Uniti which has a web radio with thousands of channels.

This may help rekindle your love of music for it's own sake and you will still have a Naim quality amp and cd player.

Whatever you decide I do hope your appreciation improves. It may well be a 'mental block' as it were, and a few weeks/months of radio listening (which is other peoples music choices), may well help bump start your
interest?

Best of luck with your dilemma.

Paul.

Paul,

thanks very much to you, too, for your interest and ideas.

I must confess that I had thought very much the same, and I consider it an idea. I like the Uniti enormously as an object and as idea - a great idea.
I know that I would perhaps be back on the Upgrade path soon again, but the idea appeals to me.

I'll let you know,

Massimo

I think you can use up specific pieces of music, they only have so many listens in them, like glasses of milk in a carton.

Some pieces last longer than others.

You can seek out new music or try to change your attitude, or maybe take a break.

For work related reasons, I had to edit 480 fictional texts for Project Gutenberg in a single year. It burned me out on fiction. I hadn't read any fiction in about four years, but now I am finally regaining my appetite for a good book.

Over exposure is deadly.

The issue of the effect of replay on the fundamental message of the performance of a piece is vital, and is a type of musical distortion that is so rarely touched on in discussion of Hifi.

No set can improve on the quality of the initial performance, but it can certainly alter the perception of that performance. I know this from listening to playback of tapes of concerts in which I had played. Of course having rehearsed and played in a particular concert, then one has the clearest possible idea of the motivation and intention of the crucial expressive aspects of the performance, and so one listens with particular interest to "how it came out!" The things that came as well or sometimes even more effectively than seemed to be the plan, and the things that were fluffed or seemed to fall flat ...

What was clear to me was that different aspects of these recordings showed up on different replay sets! Some sets seemed to give more impression of forward momentum, others, less ... some hinted at different shades of balance in the musical lines each instrument or section played, yet of course the recording was the same one ... a performance one knew from the inside about what was being driven at.

One specific piece that is a great favourite of mine is the Third Brandenburg Concerto of JS Bach which I was lucky enough to play on three occasions [where a good recording set was present] after the end of my professional playing, and each time with the same chamber sized orchestra [made up of musical instrument teachers and ex-pros] which could field between about 12 and 17 players depending on the size of the concert room. One of these performances was very successful indeed. The other two had many good points.

What was striking to me was to listen to this specific recording where we surpassed our own expectations of what we might have achieved as performers ... on different playback sets.

Each set made the performance sound different, and each diminished important, but different aspects of the musical reading. This is an important point, because no set can improve, only diminish in its own characteristic way.

I always test any change to my replay with this performance, to assess how much of what was intended and apparently came through is lost. Such a test is crucial for me in assessing how much may be lost from performances I had nothing to do with. It is a rare insight in testing, but one that I find very reassuring when the set replays well.

Too much bass and the performance becomes laden and lumpy, and too much top and the performances falls apart [to my ears] in terms of propulsion. The really great set manages to let me hear all in even and lucid balance which in the performance was very fine indeed, reflected in a fine mono recording [recordings themselves can only diminish the quality of the performed balance, though modern multi-channel recordings can introduce an element of post production repair which sticks out a mile if one knows the timbres of the instruments being corrected well!], and the violas have their day, as they should. The middle voices are always the lost sheep in faulty replay, and a replay that is not well and truly centered is not something I could ever enjoy.

But for the performing musician, he or she has to contend not only with the vagaries of actually performing the music [good day or bad day], the oddities of recording balances and weight, but also the fact that every replay set is unique in its character in the sense that even two identically specified systems will be different in two different rooms.

Then people discuss the performance as if they had heard the cast iron truth from replay! Replay is utterly not a basis to comprehensive and accurately judge the quality and nature of the music making! The only truth can be found on a good day, in a good seat in a good hall at a real concert.

The truth can be approached but never completely perfectly revealed, and so many people think it can. Repay is nothing but a "sound lithograph," which may be very nice, even reasonably accurate, but so often it is miles off even with the most expensive replay sets.

Having got over the musical in-accuracy of replay, my view is that details of performance are rather less important than a lucid and clear sighted [unromantic] presentation of the actual music as far as this is possible.

ATB from George

Mikeeschman,
George,

Thanks for your thoughts. I believe (and also hope) that mine could be a case of over exposure; after all, I spend twelve-fifteen hours per week with harmony and counterpoint students, and the language and the works have been very alike for my last 25-odd years..
So, having a somewhat conflictual relationship with music at work, the mood probably leaks into my personal time, affecting my enjoyment of free music - if i may say so.
But I also understand very well the point made by George, who explains perfectly the problem with performing musicians dealing with audio reproduction. I used to play, too, in my younger days, but it was pop and rock and so it was always natural to have a recording as final goal. But I have recorded myself, my brother who's a cellist, concerts in my school days and I know that at best a recording can have - as the great, late Sergiu Celibidache used to say - a documentary value.

This could be at the origin of my difficulty in enjoying music, both recorded and live - my personal feelings about it, about my successes and career, my renounces and the paths I have perhaps mistakenly chosen to take. But this thread was not meant as a discussion of my own life, so I thank everyone for their insights, and wish you all a very nice sunday.

Any other thought is welcome, of course. I will consider a NaimUniti - with a Powerline!

Cheers,
Massimo

George,

I forgot to ask, what instrument do you play?

Cheers,

Max

quote:

Originally posted by mongo:
Might i make a suggestion? Should you wish you could sell your current boxes and buy a Uniti which has a web radio with thousands of channels.

This may help rekindle your love of music for it's own sake and you will still have a Naim quality amp and cd player.

Whatever you decide I do hope your appreciation improves. It may well be a 'mental block' as it were, and a few weeks/months of radio listening (which is other peoples music choices), may well help bump start your
interest?

Best of luck with your dilemma.

Paul.

I have also considered selling my system. I have already sold my LP12 as it just wasn't getting enough use. I loved the way it sounded but the way I listen to music has changed and I very rarely listen to a complete album anymore. I find I use my little ipod dock in the kitchen much more than my main system these days. I still love music but the money tied up in my main system could be put to better use.

quote:

Originally posted by maxbertola:
George,

I forgot to ask, what instrument do you play?

Cheers,

Max

Dear Max,

The Double-bass!

ATB from George

Dear George,

I have played electric bass for years in my younger days, and the studies of harmony in my composition course made a decent bassman of me!

So, one more reason to appreciate your arguments.

All the best,

Max

quote:

Originally posted by pumpkinhead:

quote:

Originally posted by mongo:
Might i make a suggestion? Should you wish you could sell your current boxes and buy a Uniti which has a web radio with thousands of channels.

This may help rekindle your love of music for it's own sake and you will still have a Naim quality amp and cd player.

Whatever you decide I do hope your appreciation improves. It may well be a 'mental block' as it were, and a few weeks/months of radio listening (which is other peoples music choices), may well help bump start your
interest?

Best of luck with your dilemma.

Paul.

I have also considered selling my system. I have already sold my LP12 as it just wasn't getting enough use. I loved the way it sounded but the way I listen to music has changed and I very rarely listen to a complete album anymore. I find I use my little ipod dock in the kitchen much more than my main system these days. I still love music but the money tied up in my main system could be put to better use.

I have just started to use my LP12 after doing the same via a Boss Sound dock, yes it's good but then I went back to the LP12, wow. Pleased I used the Boss for so long, it's got me get back to my system and only use the system when in the kitchen now.