Where does naim sound come from

man, i believe "all of the above". in a properly balanced naim system, each component does not deteriorate the music coming from an upstream (nearer source) component while performing its function.

this is nothing to do with synergy -- any losses upstream will never be recovered by any component downstream -- which is the the basis of the "source first" philosophy, which, with careless application, can become an end, rather than a means to an end...

enjoy

ken

From a combination of design philosophy and synergy between components.

I don't think you can attribute the sound to just one component. They all have the naim signature but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Just my colonial opinion.

mykel

I would say the source. There are alternatives to Naim for amps, eg. Densen, Rega, possibly Roksan or Exposure - only speculating on these last two, as I haven't heard them. As for speakers the list is endless, but certainly includes Rega, JM Lab, Ruark and Royd to Naim but a few. As for CD players though, there is only one Naim IMHO, although Rega does get close with the Jupiter.

Hi,

I think a lot of it comes from the power supply, both in the power amp and for the pre amp, after all adding if a supercap makes so much difference theirs your answer!!!

pete

The speakers. I can definitely hear sound coming from the speakers.

Jay

I would suspect that one of the reason Naim sounds like it does is that there is a great deal of effort put into the amplification at all points. Every component has analogue amplication and if this is done poorly you will take something from the original equipment, thus the improvements with better power supplies.

As an example of this I was recording on a humble sony 3 head cassette deck and found that there was a significant effect on the signal in being passed through the output stag into the tape deck and back out to the amp. However, the difference between the signal on to the tape and off the tape where hardly distinguishable. My conclusion is that if the amplification or adjusting of a signal is done badly then it doesn't how good the signal is to start with, it's going to come out poorly.

I think Naim CD players sound good partly because they spend some money on there analogue treatment of the signal which is something cheaper CDs players can't afford to do.

Matthew

Everything in a "system" effects its sound. In equipment such as Naim or Spectral/MIT where there is a deep system philosophy, than altering any component of that systenm will significantly effect the sound. In short, its impossible to say.

Jay