Neat Speakers

Quote:-

Are the Neat speakers something I should be trying out?????
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In a word YES! especially with Naim gear, as Alex says they work very well together.

Regards


NB

....worth looking at JMLab (oops sorry).

(A closet JMLab fan)

<< Hifi Choice online reviews, which don't praise them to highly >> What further recommendation do you need?

I'm pretty sure Grahams HiFi have both Elites and Mystiques for demo. If you live in or near London I would approach them and organise a home demo over a weekend. That way you can decide at your leisure in your own home listening to your own equipment.

This is essentially what I was going to do until I found a pair of ex-demo MF5s. They're awesome.

About a year ago I had a similar quest for speakers and similar system (Nait 5, CD5) and went to Grahams for a speaker demo. Grahams actually listed CD5 + Nait 5 + Mystique in their "Suggested Systems" on the website. Listened initially to the NEAT Mystique and then tried the more expensive NEAT Elite.

The Elite was far better. Then at recommendation of the most helpful employee I tried the Arcaydis Concept II (same price point as the Elite). Found it very similar to the Elite but somehow more engaging.

Worth a listen.

Regards,
Chris

I bought my Neat Mistiques in January and they are just wonderful, especially for a price tag of £800!! My Naim 72/140 and CD3.5+HC is singing!
Kid

..Life has just got better

Let me confuse you even more by throwing yet another option in the ring. Having recently auditioned many speakers, including Neat Elite (excellent), JM Lab (pretty good, very good value for money), B&W (700 series) etc, I finally opted for Royd RR2. Similar pricerange as the Neat Elite, slightly more expensive than the JM Lab (816) and slightly cheaper than B&W.

Most importantly though, I thought they were the best speaker to complete my CD5/112/150 line up. Makes for a particularly well balanced set which I believe will still perform most competently should I wish to upgrade my amp or CDP.

Jeroen

Per
My room size is about 6x3 mtrs. Distance to the rear wall is only about 35/40 cm. As they are side ported they are quite flexible where you position them. Much will depend on personal preference.
The 150 is plenty powerfull enough. I will however be adding a power supply. Not yet sure wherther to go for FC2 or Hicap. But I found that even if upgrading to 200 series, the RR2 will not be struggling. Although it is not a speaker that is routinely mentioned on this forum, I am sure that many Naim users actually do have Roys speakers. They certainly go extremely well with Naim and came highly recommended by 2 different Naim dealers in my area, completely independent of one another.
Anyone out there back me up on this one??

Jeroen

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

I tried out th Neat Mystiques yesterday, I was quite impressed for the money. We then hooked up the Neat Elites, I was very impressed, a very sweet and smooth tweeter I thought, which made me realise how sharp the Mystique had sounded on some of my favorite Steve Vai bits.

However, the missus wasn't impressed (Yes I know she should have been at home doing the ironing), so out came the Spendor S6e's. I though they were in a different (better) league again.

Problem with the Spendor though, they seem big, in size and sound, and I think they will overwelm my lounge. And at £1500 it would be a coslty mistake if they do.

I'll probably give the Royd's a try (thanks Jeroen P), and the Arcaydis's (cheers rowett) next.

Thanks again.

Carl.

Stoney,

In the near future I will be similarly in the market for a speaker upgrade. I'm waiting for the PMC GB1's and the Ariva to come out, but I also want to dem the Spendor S5/e's. At £1100 for a new pair they're £400 cheaper than the '6's you have tried and I have read very favourable posts from other Forum members who have heard them. Might be worth a shot.

Happy listening!

JonR

Hi there
I thought that I should throw in my views also. I have found that Neat make great speakers which perform well with Naim kit. However regarding SBLs. I might unleash a torrent hear but my opinion is that SBLs sound great with vinyl but they are not so good with CD - I therefore strongly recommend that you auditon SBLs with CD before making a commitment in that direction.
On another point. I and I guess many others, have come to find that your listening room makes a huge difference to listening matters. If at all possible, do try and get some kind of audition in your own listening room.
Good luck
Raphael
Ps. In answer to your direct question - Neats are great!

Hi Stoney,

I thought I might share my recent experience in case you missed my recent post

To summarize: just this past weekend I auditioned Naim for the first time - the humble Nait 5i. I brought home a pair of Spendor S5e speakers to mate with the 5i. (I had heard this combination in the store and could not believe how good it sounded and was skeptical that I would achieve such results at home.) There was no need for me to worry. I realize that this is the bottom rung of the Naim ladder, but to my ears it sounded extremely good. As I understand it, the S5e's are smaller than the S6e's (not to mention that they cost less).

I would like to listen to the S6e, but my local dealer just started carrying the Spendor line and did not have them available for audition. The only weakness that I detected with the 5i/S5e combination was a bit of an emphasis on the upper mids. As an example this would tend to make an acoustic guitar sound just a bit bright and thin in the overall mix. However, this combination did everything else quite well (wonderfully full and tight bass from such a small pair of cabinets with the 5i!) and I think it will be hard to beat for the price.

Please note that for my source I was using an Arcam FMJ CD23T and was not able to try my vinyl rig as I did not bring home any type of phono pre (I don't have a standalone unit in my current system). My room size is approximately 13' x 18' with a large opening to another room of similar dimensions.

Sorry for going on so long, but as you can probably tell, I was impressed. If you haven't already listened to the Spendor S5e you might give them a go. If you did listen to them, I would be interested to hear how you thought they compared to the S6e as I was not able to listen to these.

All the best,
Bill

Thanks Bill.

Unfortunatley I didn't listen to the S5e. I wish I had now as the size and price of them makes them rather appealing.

I listen to a great deal of Acoustic music, so maybe the weakness you have noticed would get to me in time though.

Thanks, Carl.

Stoney,

Following my last post to this thread I have talked to my dealer about this issue. It should be noted that for my home audition I used speaker cable manufactured by Chord (as none of the Naim cable had been properly setup for the termination required by the spacing of the terminals on the Spendors). Back in the store we compared the Chord cable and the Naim cable running into a pair of ProAc Studio 100 speakers. I did detect a difference between the two with the Chord cable exhibiting the coloration that I mentioned earlier. So my next step is to audition the Naim/S5e combination with the Naim cables (Nac a5?). Sorry, all of this Naim terminology is still a bit new to me.

Left with a desire to learn a bit more, I'm also planning on comparing the Nait 5i with the NAC 112/NAP 150 combo.

All the best,
Bill