I'm outta here

Well regarding the apple mac, I will hate you with a certain passion!

How about a compromise? Get a base range of naim kit (or whatever) and plumb the apple through it? You may need a griffin adaptor if you wish to return sound to the mac (USB) but other than that it could be a cheap ulternative.

When my CDi was in for repair I had the mac going through the system and was ashamed to admit to not hearing a terrible loss in quality with itunes set with no EQ.

Worth considering.

Are you gonna get a 23inch flat panel? Drool Drool

Andy

If you don't listen to music much now on the, presumably very good, system you have why would you listen more on anything else?

Seems to me that you are more interested in the medium than the message.

cheers

Nigel

Ultimately this is what happens when you are more into the hardware than the music. Very sad. I am moving away from the upgrade spiral as my system is now so good that it shows up what is wrong as well right in a recording. If I go any higher up the ladder I feel it will become self defeating. I listen to music more than ever but also have a young family and understand how they can pull on your free time. Any new interests that I take on will encompass more than just myself - it's all part of growing up.

Andrew
I am a full time educator who until recently had responsibilty for all academic, service and support issues in my institution in relation to C&IT. As part of the C&IT provision we had appoximately 700 Macs and 200 PCs (plus a few Unix systems) all networked. I am known locally as MacAllan as a result of my open preference for that platform and I probably spend 12 hours per day working at a Mac. I also have a great belief in the digital hub strategy.... but...... in relation to your proposal above all I can say is I hope you have thought it out well. We all have spells of not listening to our hifi systems and then come back to to enjoy the pleasures of listening again. The Mac and related facilities (as they stand at the moment) are no substutue for your system.
Best wishes
Terry

The title of a track on Steve Forbert's 'Streets Of This Town' which mirrors your situation and feelings.

Check it out.

Another interesting tale (possibly true) is that the late author Douglas Adams owned a classic Linn - Naim - Isobarik system in the seventies and early eighties and played it to death.

Later he was able to buy a really exotic high end CD based system and reported that it received very little use.

Ah; the joys of growing older.

And what is all that crap on Top Of The Pops.

Oh shit; I'm doing it now!

If it's the kids that keep you from listening, that will change with time. Selling the aim seems counter-productive and short-sighted.

If you don't like the music, try an LP12 or Rega 3 (for cheap and easy access to vinyl).

I can't believe that the Mac will satisfy for long.

Phil

Some of you are right (to a degree) in that my mac lust has overtaken my naim habit - but be really honest guys, i'm sure that most of you (if you stared into your souls) would have to admit that the hardware and the aura surrounding 'what are naim going to do next' / 'which power supply should i get next' is pretty strong ... witness the success of the forum over the years and the endless arguments over kit minutiae

No i love my music and probably will miss the system but within the confines of our compact house the new strategy will give the whole family a lot more flexibility - for various reasons we need a home office with music way more than we need a dedicated 'family unfriendly' listening room ... the fact that naim are going hard disk too means that i mustn't be alone in wanting a bit more flexibility ... who knows when it comes out it might be a better platform than the envisaged mac set up

I'm not totally abandoning ship by the way ... my LP12/prefix/armageddon/aro/dynavectorXV1 plus '000's of LP's are going into storage and will emerge when circumstances are more favourable - naim of whatever flavour will almost certainly accompany it

See you in a year or two

Andy

Well I haven't a problem with the idea of user friendly/distributed systems, but you really don't appear to have defined what you're trying to achieve.

Are you saying that:
1. You want music in the whole house?
2. You want to be able to address your whole music collection without picking out an LP from it's sleeve or taking out a CD case?

For option 1, doesn't that mean you'd need amplifiers and speaker dotted around the house?
Assuming it's mainly for option 2, why not simply run it alongside and in parallel with your existing system?

Ref your hardware question about soundcards, the easy answer would be to suggest any that has a digital output. I recently listened to my PC via my main hi-fi running an output from it's audio out lead. Sounded flat, lifeless, lacking in detail etc etc (that was with a CD, MP3 sounded worse).
My thought would be to suggest that you use a card to output to an external decoder as it's almost certainly going to be better than the decoding chipset on a soundcard.

Go on, tell us some more about what you're upto here, I'm really curious.

quote:

---

I too have young children who couldn't spend enough time with me. And if I feel like some tunes, I play with them in my music room. It's double the pleasure when music and fun is shared with the ones you love.

---

You don't listen to Can, Neu, Faust, Godspeed, Yes or Sigur Ros then?



Stephen

[This message was edited by Stephen Bennett on TUESDAY 02 July 2002 at 15:08.]

I can visualise the Tellytubbies grooving to 'Tales Of Topographic Oceans'.

There's a huge untapped market there, somewhere.

Take note, you A&R men!

re enquiry ... "Go on, tell us some more about what you're upto here, I'm really curious ..."

It's basically a complex interaction of a whole host of push and pull factors ... very briefly summarised as:

PUSH
1. somewhat bored of hifi hobby after 20 years of pursuit
2. less obsessionally into music than i was
3. house / room too small (although desirably central) - listening room under pressure as occasional laundry
4. can't really thrash system because of neighbour grief (often more imagined than real)
5. little time to listen / lure of TV post dinner
6. love child to death but simply can't do the 'play with offspring whilst listening (and being involved with) music' as an earlier poster claims he can
7. system somehow stands as symbol of earlier life which i cannot recapture nor necessarily want to re-visit
8. cook everynight whilst wife puts kids to bed and find that ipod / fifty quid crappy pc speakers still do the biz for me (maybe it's the distortion as i drive the inbuilt 5w amps to clipping)
9. very average sony in car stuff does a good job too ... i think that it's a volume thing!
10. realised that i can trade it all in / buy all the new kit plus new furniture / redecoration for no additional cash

PULL
1. want shiny new mac kit
2. want to be able to do work / leisure stuff whilst listening other than read paper
3. wife wants home office and both of us are sick of laptops on kitchen table
4. child just getting into gaming / and (amazingly) adobe illustrator!
5. child gets up at 6 in morning and will be nice to have alternative distraction to 2 or 3 hours of bob the builder etc.
6. wife and child want to make music at home so getting cubase etc.
7. i'm sorry but i just love that 'find all your track listing data in a flash' stuff
8. similarly impressed by instant compilation cd's / surfing the world's radio stations etc.
9. promises great compatibilty with all other mac goodies / dv camcorder / digital camera / ipod / powerbook etc.
10. hope that storing cd's uncompressed + realtively serious actives + (possibly) DA converter won't sound too terrible overall

somewhere in the above lies the motivation for change ....

see ya

andy

Good call man. If you're happy, go for it.

Personally I'd be more than a little wary about losing your kit so quickly. What about if you change your mind in a couple of months.

Ref the sound quality. Well if you're happy with some nasty PC speakers, even MP3 from your PC would probably be fine.

Naim Audio's forthcoming music server could be just the ticket for you then

Best of luck with your new lifestyle. Don't sell the system - when your child reaches their teens you'll both be cranking up the volume!

Andrew

Andrew Randle
Currently in the "Linn Binn"

Hi Andrew:

You wrote:

>7. system somehow stands as symbol of earlier life which i cannot recapture nor necessarily want to re-visit<

Now I'm as thick skinned as they come but that sentence hit me like a sunny day in an English summer. You're a little younger than me, 37 vs 41 but I've had the same sort of feelings in the past. However, I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to become a 'semi-detached suburban Mr. James' and my wife didn't want to be 'Mr's James' either.

Andrew, this isn't about the Hi-Fi or the Mac, it's about your life, aspirations, victories, disappointments and who you are. Take time for reflection before pulling the plug.

Best Regards,
Mark Dunn

MARK

You're right of course re this being about life rather than brand names but don't worry i have thought this through (for a while actually) - Re going all suburban, i don't think that there's much danger of that ... we're resolute urbanists and despite some constraints re childcare we're still out in town every other night

Andy