digital camera - system photos

Posted by: Guido on 12 January 2002

A friend gave me his digital camera for the weekend. As I'm going to change my speakers - from b+w cdm 9 nt to cabasse fregatte - here a couple of shots, showing the old setup.

hope it works

Posted on: 12 January 2002 by Guido

rega wallshelf - diy board on spikes

Posted on: 12 January 2002 by Guido

From top
CDI - 102 - pioneer F77 tuner - 180 - HiCap
mm board box and old grey snaics stored on the boxes ...

Posted on: 12 January 2002 by Guido

is that dust under the base?

Posted on: 12 January 2002 by Guido

my grace tonearm - never managed to get a fitiing arm cable - next thing to be sold on ebay

As soon as the cabasse speakers have arrived at the main system (currently one room away)
I will torture you with new pics...
Nice weekend
regards
Guido
P.S: speaker change influenced by multiple reasons:
1. They are bu** ugly
2. they dominate the room
3. the bass is still boomy
4. the cabasse are smaller, quicker, faster

Posted on: 12 January 2002 by Mike Sae

good show!

Was the 1st picture taken w/only ambient light?

Posted on: 13 January 2002 by Steve G

Guido,

I'm never comfortable with the electronics (and in particular the turntable) being so close to the speakers - do you get any problems from this?

Regards
Steve

Posted on: 13 January 2002 by count.d

I was going to say that Steve.

Your system looks like it will suffer from the speaker to component distance.

Posted on: 13 January 2002 by J.N.

No no no no no.

I say again, No!

Posted on: 13 January 2002 by J.N.

I had to have a rub down with the Radio Times (strange British custom) to get over the shock.

Now I've calmed down; some reasoned judgement:-

The trampolin was designed for inferior mounting surfaces. You have what looks like a very good rigid support.

Get it off. I, and many others prefer the Linn thing with no baseboard at all. Just screw the original little rubber feet into the corners and try it again.

Posted on: 13 January 2002 by Guido

About 18 months ago a lightning strike into the mains killed my satellite receiver - as I hoped only the fuse was blown Iopened it and checked the fuse on the mainboard (after disconnecting the mains of course). On the ground a few seconds later I realized, it takes a time for the caps to loose their load.
I do know about the reputation of the trampolinn here.
The baseboard is mainly used to protect me from the evil caps on the valhalla board as I am moving the kit around a lot in the recent time.
The trampolinn feet will be removed in the near future - after a temporary "final" kit status is reached (when the akito I bought is installed).
The system positioning is a left over of my last tries of system positioning (moved the rack - was centered between the speakers). This way it sounds suoerior to the old setup - distance kit - spekers is limited by the length of the arm cable.
Today is nearly the last day of the B+W's in the system. With the smaller cabasse I have more flexibility with the speakers, they will move to the other wall of the room.
The distance lp12 - speakers is the result of me being too lazy to remount the wallshelf in a different place after the speaker repositiopning, as this setup sounded better than the old one I accepted the very small distance.
This is a work in progress.
Regards
Guido

Posted on: 13 January 2002 by jpk73

Please have a look at the pictures of my recent update!

No Trampolin, no RF with the prefix-K...

Jun

Posted on: 13 January 2002 by Guido

Hi Jun!

Your lp12 really looks nice - I'm sure it sounds phantastic!
The stacked power amps on the floor, the stacked supercaps in the rack, not every box having a shelf on its own - couldn't the system perfomance be bettered/optimized if the 135s had a decent stand, the boxes their "own" shelves?
(adding a support, say a base rack? )
The trampolinn will be modded - trampolinn feet removed - when the next turntable mod (akito) is on the schedule.
Today the cabasse have arrived - rearranging the room will have to wait...
Ana Caram "blue bossa" spinning in the CDI at the moment and they kick the b+w's a**es!!

patience, please
Guido

Posted on: 13 January 2002 by ken c

guido,

The stacked power amps on the floor, the stacked supercaps in the rack, not every box having a shelf on its own - couldn't the system perfomance be bettered/optimized if the 135s had a decent stand, the boxes their "own" shelves?

some equipment (not lp12, and probably not cdsii) may sound better on the floor than on any rack. something to do with "nearer to mother earth", but i jest... the important point is that you shouldnt dismiss the "floor" just like that...

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 13 January 2002 by Guido

Hi Mike!

I nearly forgot to answer the first question.
No, flash was used for the first picture, too.
I tried different methods to filter/cover the flash to make it less "evil" - it still is something I don't like - but as the winter in munich is dark, the menu of the camera is complex - I didn't manage to get a decent picture without. As the zoom is controlled by a very insensitive switch with lots of gain it's even gambling to adjust the focal length.
So quick and dirty pics - and photography class at film school is years ago....
Regards
Guido

Posted on: 14 January 2002 by jpk73

Guido: Congratulations on your Cabasses! Yes, my next upgrade-step would possibly be fraim...

Ken C: active SBLs are wonderful, aren't they?! Is the Prefix powered by a HiCap much different from powered by the 52?

Jun

Posted on: 14 January 2002 by ken c

Ken C: active SBLs are wonderful, aren't they?! Is the Prefix powered by a HiCap much different from powered by the 52?

when all is working OK, active SBL's are more than wonderful -- they are magic. my main naim system is in my office and i have my desk between the sbl's, which i gather is non-ideal, but hey, there are other priorities in life. they sound bloody good inspite of this. they are also appear to be a lot more robust than i ever imagined given their construction. mine went through quite a bit of man-handling while my active system was being installed -- they were moved, tilted, xover removed, put back, removed, put back, tweeters blown, etc etc... but they are still going strong (of course, blown tweeter was replaced, caused by faulty power amp). i am very interested in the new sbl replacement though, depending on how they sound and scale.

on prefix, i have tried hicap into BNC, hicap into aux and prefix straight into input 2b -- which is what i am using right now -- i am having a little more success with reduced RFI and it sounds a little better than i remember with other options. if you are going to experiment, please do be careful that you connect one and only one piece of equipment to input 2 -- i guarantee that you will be very sorry if you overload it. music will evaporate from your system. i know, because i made that stupid mistake once. fortunately naim came to the rescue -- FOC!!!! can you believe that???

what music are you listening to on your active system? i'd like to share other experiences with active systems if you are interested.

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 14 January 2002 by jpk73

So powering the Prefix from 2b is better than with a separate HiCap... Fortunately I don't have any problems with RFI until now, the Prefix is now running in and getting better every day!

I started my active-experience with Credo/92/IXO/90s, changed to SBLs; that was not enough for them, so I upgraded the whole thing to the present state.

I am listening mostly to Jazz and Classic; many friends bring their Pop, Soul, Chillout, Bossa, CafeDelMar etc. I don't have really knowledge of all this genres...

Yesterday I listened to a system with Audiomeca CD-Transport, DCS-upsampling/DAC and Thiel 7 driven by some American 2500W-amps. It sounded very clean and I think the CD-kombo is quite OK. But there was no fun at all... Emotion and rhythm was not there... Maybe it was missing what naim-owners call PRaT? Anyway, I was very relieved when I played the same CD at home afterwords!

Jun

P.S.: What kind of RC comes with a brandnew 52 these days: the Flash??

Posted on: 14 January 2002 by Bas V

Hi Guido!

I'm quite curious about your new speakers. I have never really liked B&W, so that you change them seems a wise turn imo. But I have also bad experiences with high sensitivity speaker designs (>93dB) and Naim. I have always heard annoying hiss with these combinations. Now I believe Cabasse also are pretty high sensitive speakers. Any comments on this?
I have the same set as you do and am wondering about new speakers also. My shortlist will probably comprise models from Epos, Naim and Monitor Audio. But I think Cabasse might be an option if hiss is limited, as I like their dynamic sound. Please, tell me more!

Greetz, Bas

Posted on: 14 January 2002 by ken c

best configuration for prefix?? i didnt really do any exhaustive test, but i recall i was not really happy with prefix/hicap into bnc/straight thru boards -- and then my dealer and a number of people here reported that this wasnt as good as prefix/hicap into high level input. i tried this, but RFI was much higher for some reason. since i removed hicap and powered prefix from 52 input 2b, RFI is much lower -- but i am told this is not the best musically --prefix/*cap into high level being preferred. (you have a supercapped prefix right??). LP sounds grand to me, so i will leave things as they are for the time being.

there are a number of very useful messages by Ron Toolsie and Martin Payne on this subject which i will try to dig up.

i guess this is one of those issues where some advice from the orphean experts at naim might actually be very useful indeed.

whats your experience?

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 14 January 2002 by jpk73

Ken, I just plugged the Prefix to the SuperCap and enjoy LP... So unfortunately I cannot tell you if HiCap/Prefix is better than Prefix powered by the 52. But I understood that one rail of the SuperCap is looped through the 52 to power the Prefix, so it should be better than with the HiCap...

But you are the one who can do the comparison!

Jun

Posted on: 15 January 2002 by Guido

Hi Bas!

you wrote

quote:
I'm quite curious about your new speakers. I have never really liked B&W, so that you change them seems a wise turn imo. But I have also bad experiences with high sensitivity speaker designs (>93dB) and Naim. I have always heard annoying hiss with these combinations. Now I believe Cabasse also are pretty high sensitive speakers. Any comments on this?

Although the sensitivity of the b+w is 93db there was no audible hiss - just quite.
Reading the posts on this forum I'd think the mains quality must be ok in my house/region.
The cabasse are rated with 88db - they are an older design, I think '99 or '98.
Bought them sh at my local dealer after auditioning their bigger range - especially the iroise was very impressing, lacking the right language my impression was: very involving, tunefull, all ind all fun.
The small one having the same qulities but having less bass (extension?).
Bought originally for the AV system I couldn't resist to test them in the main system - as the bass of the b+w never made me happy.
The result: b+w's dumped (already sold - will be picked up today) - cabasse promoted to main system.
No hiss with the cabasse, too.

Regards
Guido