New NAP300DR - rant

You seem to sit also very close to the speakers, with the hard stone. Might be some potential for winning something through changing a bit the room setup.

keep on informing us about how the sound develops...

I'm not certain what is meant by the hard stone, but if you take the basic listening room triangle in account and consider where the listener's ears are positioned the set up does not appear unreasonable. That said, there does seem to be asymmetry with regard to side wall reflections, but I guess every room has its caveats within the living space. My room has its own unavoidable asymmetrics that I live with.

Hard stone = looks like polished marble: technically marble is not a very hard stone, but nonetheless the surface is highly reflective of sound. The close listening position at least means the reflected path is longer in proportion to the direct path than it would be if further away.

A UnitiQute and PMC DB1i (nearfield monitors) may outperform the existing kit in that configuration...

I don’t know what else to put in this weird corner of the living room so I turned it into a listening space.

The near-field listening is not ideal but it does have its perks. For example with the current kit the sound stage is so big that it envelopes me as if I am in a huge bubble. It is not noisy from the reflections but no doubt less reflection is even better.

Bert, I’ve tried NDS with non-Naim amps, and vice versa. Nothing beats a full Naim setup. Even with the relatively small floorstanders, the soundstage reaches up to the ceiling and 2 metres out from both sides of the speakers. I can play at low or high volume and both are hugely enjoyable. Who says Naim cannot do imaging and soundstage? They are all here in spades.

Hafler, what you said is certainly possible.

Just got home and snapped a pic of the auralex absorbers. They make pretty good living room decor.

The absorbers certainly look good! Mine (as they were home brewed) look good, from a distance. I tried a configuration similar to yours once but the room was of a different construction and the music lacked 'air', it's most likely an open uncluttered higher ceilinged space gives you that benefit my space did not, plus your kit is a lot higher up the chain!!

Hafler, my first floorstanders were PMC 20.24 in diamond black, which I used with a SN1/HCDR. From that experience, I notice that PMCs can be very unforgiving to the electronics feeding it so I had a lot of trouble until I upgraded to NDAC/XPS. Do you have any trouble with your PMC speakers, like harshness or “over-transparency” on recordings?

On the other hand if you ever wish to move to floorstanders, please do try the Focal Aria 936. Absolutely amazing speakers.

Sorry I have been out all day, I shall endeavour to answer your question later tonight! I have two very interesting finds with regards the treble response.

As I'm resident in France Focal speakers are extremely good value and can be had for less than the UK prices (sometimes a lot less!) so they are always on a shortlist here. Having the Chorus 806W SE at home, they are amazingly high performers for the money, probably a bit fat in the bass for many 'smaller' UK living spaces, but perfect for larger, more solid properties here. I lived in a stables conversion in the UK before moving to a larger place in France that used to be a complex of farmhouses. Work in progress!

Yes the mid range Focals are crazy value for money.

Looking forward to hear your comments about the PMCs.

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My PMC fact 8's sound significantly better now I have moved them out a few more inches, well worth experimenting with speaker positioning.

Gary