hi,
today, i got the airlocks on my NACA5's replaced by naim plugs. promised i would post on any musical changes i observed.
lets cut to the chase. the differences are very significant in my system! the naim plugs time a lot better. and they pick up even the slightest nuances in the performance.
i have to admit initially, just after connecting them, i was oscillating between "oh, i like that" and "hmmm... not quite sure now". you will recall i reported that i had divided my cd's into a "good uns" pile and an "also ran" pile. well, i still have two piles after the changeover. but now, after quite a long cd playing session, a large number of cd's have now been promoted to the "good uns" pile. good result.
what made me feel unsure of the change was when i switched to capital fm after installing the cables - i felt that the system had become significantly more sibilant. "oh, my god, what now?" this could have been the sbl's waking up after being disconnected for a few hours, dunno...
tried a cd. brubeck happened to be on top of the cd player (honest!)-- so why not. this was to be a real eye (ear) opener. is that "blue rondo..." playing?? really?? take 5?? naaaah... the new ingredient which had completely changed things was a fresh sense of the timing. not metronomic, no -- but cohesive, yes. this time i was much more aware of the play with time signatures. and on "take 5" this (plus yet another layer of tuneful percussion), was so strong that my concern with lack of "slam" has now become rather silly and academic. still i have to have something to complain about, yes? how else could i justify this endless upgrade cycle??
however, i can now see why others may clearly prefer the airlocks. they sound "cleaner". unfortunately, some of the music is being cleaned away. if you become overzealous cleaning a painting -- you risk removing some of the art.
i know what i prefer...
enjoy
ken
Posted on: 27 May 2001 by Martin Payne
Hah - told you.
Just one thing - in my system the Naim plugs were also cleaner than the Airloks. Unequivocally better in ALL areas.
I wonder if you may have tuned your system to compensate for the deficiencies of the plugs?
Is your crossover set flat? Can't remember if you've answered this before...
cheers, Martin
Posted on: 27 May 2001 by ken c
martin and will many thanks.
quote:
I wonder if you may have tuned your system to compensate for the deficiencies of the plugs?
you may have something there martin. i will give this a think, but i am not really that worried as the system is much much better musically with the naim plugs. i havent really taken enough care dressing the speaker cables behind the projekt rack -- will do so and see what happens.
so people who prefer the airlocks are happy to miss all that music... or is it that their performance is very system dependent --?? this one is a bit too obvious??
enjoy
ken
Posted on: 27 May 2001 by Martin Payne
quote:
or is it that their performance is very system dependent
Ken,
I think you're onto something there.
The Airloks smooth off ths sound, which may be good for a low-end (slimline?) system with cheaper speakers, i.e. relatively unsubtle gear, with low current-draw.
Where the system provides it's own subtlety, and and can throw large currents at the drop of a transient this is not at all helpful.
BTW, did you find the Naim plugs improved your slam at all, or is this aspect completely unchanged? I'd be surprised if you got no benefit in this area.
If you got nothing from this I'm pretty sure you'd then be talking about a room problem. "Juan" has recently gone from passive 135s to active 250s with SBLs and they definately go deeper. You could now be running up against the behaviour of your room on the 20-30Hz range.
cheers, Martin
Posted on: 27 May 2001 by ken c
you will be able to hear the change when you next visit us and compare with your own experience.
a definite positive i forgot to mention is that music now has mucu more dynamic shape -- i am now more aware of crescendos and descrescendos, whereas before i wasnt. and also i now realise some bass notes are actually an octave lower than i have been hearing priot to the change.
enjoy
ken
