If you could do it all over again .....

Depends on how much you can afford to ££ lose, the law of diminishing returns says you lose more the more you spend ..buying a £1000 speaker and getting £750 when selling on, to buying a £15,000 speaker and getting £2000 for it to go towards another new one..

If you can afford to lose that sort of money then the journey has some value I guess, otherwise having arrived at some destination and living in a happy state with it has to be all you can hope for.

Ok, in 2006 I had CDX2,XPS2,HiLine,202,NAPSC,HiCap,200,NACA5,SBLs.

Now I have CDS3,SN,HiCapDR,SBLs + Vertere Cables. Between these two systems, ten years of all sorts of experiments. Now I am considering 202/200 again. I could have simply moved from CDX2 to CDS3 in 2006, or stay where I was.

If I could go back to 2005 with my present knowledge intact, I don't know if I would take the Naim route again: much as I love the brand and its products, I think it gives more headaches than joy, unless you are a very specific type of listener, which I am not. But if I had my present knowledge intact, I would also be tempted to take the same route again...

Buddhists say: better not to be born (but once you are born, best to try and be free).

Exactly as is.  

Over the years I have earned a cross section of hardware that helped me to appreciate what I have today, I would therefore not change the trip I have taken too much, but there are some dead ends I would avoid, such as:

Searching for a CD player that I could relax and enjoy; and

Quad 405.

I am thankful that in my teens when I consumed HiFi mags fora as this, PFM & WAM were not available to me .....I have spent too much time and money on HiFi and these just aid dissatisfaction and a desire to try the next magic fix; and I am FAR from immune even today!

M

No regrets here. For several years, I enjoyed the Naim upgrade path:  NaitXS, NaitXS/FCXS, nDAC, nDAC/XPS2, nDAC/555PS, NDX->nDAC/555PS, NDS/555PS, 282/250.2, 252/300, 552/300 and Superline. Also DR'ed the 552PS and 555PS, and added HiLine, PowerLines and, finally, an SL DIN5. Also moved from Harbeth C7's to Ovator 400s. The journey was fun, but I am enjoying the destination even more.

Have been very content with my sound quality over the last couple of years, with little motivation to change any further. I may DR the 300, but am not in any rush to do. I still enjoy reading about new audio hardware, but that's the current limit of my interest.

ATB.

Hook

Not too much I would have changed. Have always let my ears decide what I like best - never really cared what brand was on the boxes, and still don't. In the end it's all about the music.

Think the testament is that, after a bit of chopping and changing at school and uni, over the next last 35 years I have only owned 3 systems. The first which was completed just before I left uni, an LP12 with grace and supex, into a NAC 32' Naxo2 and 2 NAP 160s driving active Sarah's. Scored well to buy one of the 160s, a guy came in and put in as px, and I bought straight away. He wanted to swap it back at the shop a few days later but too late.

Then switched for full active brik system using a new lp12 with lingo, ekos and troika, and active box, and linn amps. Average amps, but a great deal of synergy with the activ Isobariks. Regret buying CDX, with this system, as sonically not a good match to the linn amps, and was therefore only used for background music.

Over the last 4 years been putting my current, and probably last system together. I did make a bit of mistake, as started aiming f to use Naim 552/500. With working in Brasil at the time and only being home a few weeks a year my money was burning a hole in pocket, and I bought all the Fraim I needed for what I viewed as my final system, then when I went with Vitus the Fraim was bettered by the ESS with the vitus electronics. Fortunately I got most of the Fraim cost back with px, and through an auction site.

Biggest regret is probably not buying vinyl over the years when I saw it. Had to chance to buy Mobile Fidelity sets of Pink Floyd and The Beatles albums but was saving for new hardware at the time. It I could turn the clock back would have delayed the hardware and bought the vinyl, as I still wish for these sets now!

Hungryhalibut posted:

Our bedroom is above the sitting room, so that never happens here, which is no doubt a very good thing! Oh, I forgot to mention the UnitiServe and a hiline.

my listening room is also my office and that is an extension at the back of our house. its a crowded room with all sorts -- and i often wonder how my system works at all in that environment... but perhaps it works BECAUSE of that  :-)

you forgot the Super Lumina cables HH .. 

enjoy

ken

The list is only of the discarded: the cables are very much here.

Back in the late 80s/early 90s, inflicted with upgraditis and fiddleitis to the point of almost ocd, I sold my entire set up and bought a B&O all in one.  I then spent a long time in musical wilderness before slowly reviving my interest with a Pinnacle streamer into a surround sound system and then, when I saw the Qute 2 which, at the time fit my need for a network based sound system and a set of Guru Juniors.  ALthough the latter didn't last long before I upgraded I don't regret them because they showed me what I was missing and lead to my current system.  Nor do I regret getting the B&O because I was driving myself mad at the time and spending stupid amounts of money chasing nirvana but I do regret not coming back to decent quality playback a little sooner when I was a little more mature.

Hungryhalibut posted:

The list is only of the discarded: the cables are very much here.

ah, of course!

so you havent sold the SL cables yet (all meant in jest of course!  

enjoy

ken

George Fredrik Fiske posted:

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. And without the actual experience of what has been done [in any sphere of life] hindsight would be different in any case.

But with the hindsight I have today, I would have gone straight to where where I am now without the intervening steps. 

Not only would this have cut out owning Naim, but also loudspeakers. 

On the accumulation [and distillation] of my collection of recordings, I would not want to have alterred those choices at all. 

These days my recording collection is worth more than ten times my replay hardware, and yet I still have quality replay though high quality if old fashioned designed headphones. All that is needed plus a bit! 

ATB from George

So what are you running now, george?

dayjay posted:

.... I was driving myself mad at the time and spending stupid amounts of money chasing nirvana ...

sadly, this also sounds very familiar to me. i have a recor of all my hifi expenditure since year dot and when i added the numbers, i almost fainted!

Does 'audio nirvana' exist? is it worth chasing? will we recognize it when we experience it? 

i fear the answers are Yes/Yes/Yes and this then probably explains all the madness on the journey. i feel i am close though -- whatever that means -- just that the next step is extremely steep... and probably infeasible...

enjoy

ken

MangoMonkey posted:

George Fredrik Fiske posted:

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. And without the actual experience of what has been done [in any sphere of life] hindsight would be different in any case.

But with the hindsight I have today, I would have gone straight to where where I am now without the intervening steps. 

Not only would this have cut out owning Naim, but also loudspeakers. 

On the accumulation [and distillation] of my collection of recordings, I would not want to have alterred those choices at all. 

These days my recording collection is worth more than ten times my replay hardware, and yet I still have quality replay though high quality if old fashioned designed headphones. All that is needed plus a bit! 

ATB from George

So what are you running now, george?

Profile

ken c posted:

dayjay posted:

.... I was driving myself mad at the time and spending stupid amounts of money chasing nirvana ...

sadly, this also sounds very familiar to me. i have a recor of all my hifi expenditure since year dot and when i added the numbers, i almost fainted!

Does 'audio nirvana' exist? is it worth chasing? will we recognize it when we experience it? 

i fear the answers are Yes/Yes/Yes and this then probably explains all the madness on the journey. i feel i am close though -- whatever that means -- just that the next step is extremely steep... and probably infeasible...

enjoy

ken

Ken, at the risk of diverting a little from the original theme of the thread, I have been asking the same questions about Audio Nirvana and how will you know you have arrived there (so I can stop spending the children's inheritance on black boxes). I wondered if you have any ideas of what the milestones, achieved wants or areas of satisfaction (ooh err missus!) to be reached that will tell you have arrived? Or will you just know without warning?

Maybe this is a stupid question but I would like to get off the merry-go-round eventually but it is still spinning too fast at the moment and flippin' Naim keep coming up with wonderful new developments. It has to STOP, but when?

The only bum steer for me was the CDS3 - other than that its been a great journey... perhaps I might also have jumped from Cyrus X Series directly to the 282/200 rather than via  the 202/200 as I think in hindsight it was a sideways to backwards move to some extent - even with the HiCapDR... but I was fascinated with the Naim sound.

Simon

- Buy a record cleaning machine earlier;

- I was happy with my SBLs, passive then active, and my front end first philosophy until I heard the B&W 802Ds. So perhaps I would have dem'd other speakers earlier.

But generally I have been very happy with my own upgrade path and achieving at every step the musical engagement I was looking for which I first got hooked on at Griffin Audio, Birmingham, back in the 1980's. Helped over the last 20+ years by The Sound Organisation, York and going to many great gigs!

Richard

As some others have noted, this is a hard question because I suspect the journey we've all taken has led to where we are today and it doesn't necessarily follow that sort cuts would have got us to the same place.  And as in general life I think we often learn more from mistakes that when things go well.  

Also like others, most of the steps I've take on my hi-fi journey have been heavily constrained by affordability and the luck of when a used/ex-demo piece of kit presented itself which meant I could get something of better quality than I could afford new.  

I don't really have serious regrets. During that time I made some mistakes with speakers e.g. Keesonic KRFs and Ruark Talisman IIs were poor buys, both bought without adequate demos.  And in my early vinyl days I probably wasted too much money on swopping cartridges and interchangeable headshells. And I've certainly wasted money on tweaks like green pens.

More generally I should probably have taken the plunge with Naim kit much, much earlier.  The price was part of it of course but another factor for me was Naim's peculiar requirements on cabling e.g. use of Dins rather than phonos.  I was reluctant to have to change my cabling as part of a box change.  Of course I now know and appreciate why Naim has those requirements.  Perhaps if I'd encountered better dealers in the past they might have educated me in such matters. 

Interesting question.

I definitely wish I had discovered Naim products sooner than I did.  That said, it was the late 90s when I did, and I have upgraded slightly and downgraded more since.

Kind of wish I'd kept my vinyl, although in the interest have having less s**t it is OK.  Even at that, I still own too damn much crap.  (And guitars are not considered crap! )

Purchases I "regret":

1) Most of what I had pre-Naim past my original "good" (which wasn't really) system from college.  Largely a waste of money chasing something that i didn't know what it was I was looking for...hence my original point above.

2) The Totem speakers I bought when I sold my SBLs;  nothing wrong with them, excellent speakers and the Totem company was GREAT about supporting the product even though I was not the original owner (e.g., sent me their jumpers for free...even spoke to Vince himself on the phone on one call).  But too hard to drive for what was my other purchase I regret...

3) Naim n-Vi - would have been a very nice all-in-one answer in a second or bedroom system, but fell flat on its face trying to drive the Totems.  Constantly went into protection mode at even moderate volume.  Got rid of it (and the Totems) as fast as I could and got into a Nait XS.  Costly mistake when I was actually trying to downsize to free up capital while I was in pharmacy school.

Now I would like to buy a version of what Nigel (HH) has and just stay there; life is too short to keep buying hi-fi gear, and I no loner crave a bunch of boxes...even as great as that can sound.  (This entire view subject to change in the very unlikely event I become filthy rich.)

In the 1980s i had Rega Planar 3 / Nait 1 / Rogers LS1, i upgraded the amp to 62/140 and speakers to Rogers LS7 which later wished i'd simply upgraded to Nait 2 and kept with the LS1 for longer, the LS7 were a bit too boomy. [The Nait 2 could have become a long term keeper] Didn't have much money to spend in those days : /

Buying a CDS, 72/hicap/250 [olive], and SBLs was a really smart upgrade move in 1993,  no regrets selling my LP12 at the time but really wish i hadn't sold off my LP collection - should have put them into storage.

Regrets after selling the CDS, 72/hicap/250, SBL system in 1997, although finances were bad at the time i could have made concessions in other areas to afford to keep the system. The naim-less 9 years that followed were a music listeners hardship, and led to big regrets buying a NAD amp and NAD CD player that sounded crap.

2008 regret selling a NAP72 and buying a NAP102. But 6 months later i managed to re-sell the 102 and buy a late mint 72 so bit of a waste of time with trading but worked out okay again.

Debs

christoph posted:

Chris Dolan posted:

christoph posted:

I wish i had never sold my nait2 20 years ago .

I kept mine  

sometimes i feel that a nait2,  a nice step up transformer, a big turntable and harbeth c3 would make me very happy... 

It's not like it can't be done... All it takes is a sunny day and some courage.

For that we need the guys(girls?) at NAIM to stop innovating.

I was chasing the last 500 in my system, but was decommissioned for a couple of years and realise at I have completely missed the DR wave and have not yet jumped on the SL bandwagon.  Don't even mention Statement ....

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

The only bum steer for me was the CDS3 - other than that its been a great journey... perhaps I might also have jumped from Cyrus X Series directly to the 282/200 rather than via  the 202/200 as I think in hindsight it was a sideways to backwards move to some extent - even with the HiCapDR... but I was fascinated with the Naim sound.

Simon

Hi Simon,

I would be interested in your thoughts on the CDS3.  I called this out as a wrong move too.  For me it was the presentation seemed a bit lacking until I could match it with something like the 552 and even then it was a long way short of the 555, IMHO.

Gavin

nigelb posted:

ken c posted:

dayjay posted:

.... I was driving myself mad at the time and spending stupid amounts of money chasing nirvana ...

sadly, this also sounds very familiar to me. i have a recor of all my hifi expenditure since year dot and when i added the numbers, i almost fainted!

Does 'audio nirvana' exist? is it worth chasing? will we recognize it when we experience it? 

i fear the answers are Yes/Yes/Yes and this then probably explains all the madness on the journey. i feel i am close though -- whatever that means -- just that the next step is extremely steep... and probably infeasible...

enjoy

ken

Ken, at the risk of diverting a little from the original theme of the thread, I have been asking the same questions about Audio Nirvana and how will you know you have arrived there (so I can stop spending the children's inheritance on black boxes). I wondered if you have any ideas of what the milestones, achieved wants or areas of satisfaction (ooh err missus!) to be reached that will tell you have arrived? Or will you just know without warning?

Maybe this is a stupid question but I would like to get off the merry-go-round eventually but it is still spinning too fast at the moment and flippin' Naim keep coming up with wonderful new developments. It has to STOP, but when?

It's a good question, and when I was young I'm not sure I could have answered it.  Now that I am 50 the answer is simple, when I listen to my music, do I enjoy the artist and album, am I content, or do I listen to the system?  At the moment, even though I know there are many much better systems I enjoy the music, and I am content, and that is why I got into the hobby in the first place.  It's too easy to become a kit collector aiming for the next best thing and to forget that it is all about the music, perhaps you need a few years to learn this.

Gavin, I think your summary sums it up.. compared to other sources I was using at the time the CDS3 just seemed a little flat.. it was pretty and detailed but still a little flat.. I moved my CDS3 on quite quickly..... it just didn't gel with me..

Simon

Looks like we're all 'chasing the dragon'. For me, personaly, I've quite enjoyed the journey. When I have money I spend it on things that I like. I've not made many hi-fi 'fo pars' due to some good guidance from my dealer at a very early stage of my musical evolution.

For me it's been about creating that emotional experience that music can bring, and my hi-fi has been a tool that can do that. All the 'main' systems I've owned have been able to take me to some great places but the system I have today does seem to unlock stuff better than anything I've ever owned before.

On the upside changing things from time to time does uncover some real gems that you'd never have know existed. I still have a couple of these 'quirks' in my system even today because I've simply not found anything to better them.

The way I look at it is like this; I've always avoided buying a new car so I've never taken a hit on real depreciation. At least most of my hi-fi purchases have been cost neutral by comparison!