The Bristol HiFi Show

What do you look like, Don?

I endever to wear my red sweater emblasoned "Silver Star Mountain"

I accept all the problems about Marriot beer etc but if you drink it quick you'll survive the ordeal.

Cheers

Don

Any Forum members going Sunday - if so what about meeting up - in the bar (or a nearby pub) at 1.00pm?

quote:

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So who's going on Friday?

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Tom, this is obviously your subtle way of suggesting that it would be a really good idea wouldn't it if we tried the Rammstein track on the CDS3 for the benefit of other Forum members.

OK, I'm in.

Dave

Can the guy, who last year brought the Nigel Kennedy electric violin track complete with football style chants that sounded like it had been recorded in a garage on a five quid cassette deck, bring it along again so that I can hear it on the CDS3?
John

You're not bringing Matmos are you Alan?

Hey Doug! See you Friday...(heh heh)

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

Just been to the cash point so the cds3,552,5*500's & dbl's looks ok to me.
Shall I get the beers as well?

First Impressions ?

Any body got first impressions of the show ?

We know about the Presidential Suite demos. What about the other demos and AV ?

Is there anybody other than Naim present?

Did Alan Ball get his 100,000th post sweepstake prize ?

Too many questions, not enough answers

Cheers

Don

Don / JA Toon / Muchachos

Got a pass from The Nagger, will be there saturday around lunchtime. The Curmudgeon will be wearing a black/green quartered rugby shirt with a dirty great "B" on the back, Ramones tee shirt if too warm. Like it will be.

Mike

Hi All,

just back from the show - WOW - just heaving with people, !!!

Naim have three demo's running - all excellent:
#1. Presidential room by appointment only (cdsiii/xps2/552/supercap(I think)/ with comparisons of 250 / 300 / 500 into passive DBL's - , but I have to say the real highlight was the Sarah Brightman live singing comparison (the cdsiii was clearly superior holding the highs better and giving some cleaner low end grunt, although it valiantly failed to look better than the diva herself !!! - unfortunately this was the only day she could make, so all you 'weekenders' (Mick) will have to make do with the ordinary showdown demo (which was superb by the way - Doug in particular enjoyed it hugely).

#2. Classic room (drift in at will) this should have been CDX2 / 252 / Supercap / 250 / SL2, but the CDX2 was merely posing and another CDSiii was hogging the limelight - again absolutely stunning sounds...

This room also featured Alan Balls anorak tastfully displayed in a plastic bag lumped on top of the minibar in the corner!!!

#3 AV room (drift in at will) featuring a nondescript Yamaha DVD / AV2 / 175 / 150 / Allae / MK-sub / Axent (I think)... easily the best AV demo at the show (Monsters Inc) - the MK sub was wicked (it's only discernable function was to move the hotel around as the Allae's were making all the audible sounds !!!)

I looked around the rest of the show and noted a lot of Bryston kit being used, and tripped over more Naims in quite unlikely places (like the Spendor room).

Excellent event and lots of credit to our therapists - who were on hand in all the Naim rooms for impromtu 'treatment' sessions...

Anybody else there today?

cheers!!!
Chris

I live just a bit too far away to visit the show.

Can someone summarise what new equipment/music Naim introduced?

Regards

David

Tom - me charming - you got the wrong person

However some thoughts

I last went to the Bristol show in 2001 and while I cannot remember the sound from the closed session in 2001 I can remember my thoughts at the end of the session and I can compare them with my thoughts this time

This time I came away much more impressed - with the sound of the CDSiii, 552 single 500 and DBL than I did with the CDSii 52 triple 500 DBL of two years ago -

Perhaps there is something in "source first" after all

Comparing orchestral, the "Espana" piece, with the non orchestral works, the overall experience for me with the non orchestral work was better.

The upgrade path experience was reassuring in that it reaffirmed my use of a 500 at home. As well as bass control and cleanliness improving as we went up the range of amps, there was a lightness and detail coming in at the higher end as well - so 500 got 11 points, the 300 got 5 points etc etc.

Overall show experiemce was good - one of the more enjoyable show experiences and it was good to meet the TW riders as well as the people from Naim.

WB - the ACT sounded very nice - not rushing to the dealer though. I wish they had the Chimeras on dem.

From the Naim AV room courtesy of Mr Administrator (Ricard D)
Interesting to note that a "Directors cut" version of Amadeus is out on DVD.

Bjork DVD images - not as fascinating as some of the animation in the "The Wall" film.

Who or what is the cartoon insect that that was seen singing on one of the DVds.

And finally to clarify my curiosity - who or what is Rammstein - some of us oldies are very out of touch what you young things do or like<g>

Derek

Tom,

A fair and accurate assessment I'd say - shame you missed the Rammstein in the Presidential Suite. I don't think Doug was too impressed with the track but he was, as ever, an affable 'host' and extremely generous in letting us loose with the volume control. Having played the same track ("Heirate Mich") on the Mark Levinson gear just a few minutes beforehand, it proved to be a fascinating comparison.

The Mark L stuff was dire. I know it's fashionable around these parts to knock it, but it really was a joke. The whole thing lacked any coherent sense of music or emotion - the Rammstein sounded like it had been produced by Val Doonican and was competely devoid of "grunt". The only possible exception was the little Revel speakers which would be interesting to hear on the end of something a little more representative.

The Meridian dem was also pretty dreadful. Glad I went but I was amused and slightly apalled by what they described as their best efforts yet. It started with a presentation of a performance of a Chopin piano concerto on DVD video which they proudly claimed showed how much Meridian had advanced sonically with this underappreciated format. It was truly awful. The following surround sound DVDA dem using an REM track was equally poor and the sitting-in-the mix effect made me feel queasy.

The Living Voice Avatar OBX dem fronted by a top of the line VPI turntable was a highlight of the show for me. Indeed, it was gratifying to see the use of so many turntables throughout the exhibition. Shame these speakers don't work with Naim amps as they really did sound excellent (Nick L had a bad experience with them several months ago, you may recall).

The Rega room was honest. The Counting Crows album sounded harsh on the Rega 3 but the system did time and didn't lack for excitement. Seeing as this was a system costing £hundred's rather than £tens of thousands, as seemed to be common at the show, Rega are to be applauded.

Diverse Vinyl proved a vital stopover having some essential albums available at show-special prices. I picked up copies of Dolly Varden's latest and Alison Kruss and Union Stations' "New Favourite", which is stunning and vastly better than my CD copy. More like this, please.

But back to the various Naim rooms. The AV room was highly engaging although their use of a crappy DVD player did them them no favours. All the characteristic Naim sounds from an AV set up, though. Makes you think.

Only spent a couple of minutes in the 'low-end' (CDX2/202/200/napsc/allae) room which was OK but the 'mid-range' (CDS3 or CDX2/252/250/SL2) room, where David H-M and I met up with Tom Alves demonstrated that the SL2's in a smallish room are capable of producing a hell of a lot more bass than we had previously heard. Could have been down to the CDS3 although I shall definitely audition some of these at home in the none-too-distant future.

Which leads me to the main event, the primary reason for going to the show in the first place. The CDS3/552/500/DBL's.

It pains me to say that I was mildly disappointed. Last years' showcase was a revelation - the CDS2/552/500/SL2's really did it for me - but this year something fundamental had changed which could only be down to the CDS3 and the DBL's. I'm afraid I simply don't care for the DBL's but it was the new CDS3, which, whilst undoubtedly excellent, is very different in character from what I am used to hearing from Naim. Clearly it was brand new, not fully run-in and this was the first day of the show but on this inital listening, I don't think it's a direction I want to follow.

It was a shame Naim had decided to demonstrate the differences between 250,300 and 500 as the real coparison should have been CDS's 2 and 3. That was what we all wanted to know. Another time maybe.

Dave

Derek,

It was nice to meet you, too.

Rammstein are a German group that play a sort of heavy metal, euro-beat, gothic cacophony. For some reason when I played this particular track , "Heirate Mich" from the Herzeleid album at the first of the Riders get together's it struck a chord with all of us despite our having sometimes quite dissimilar tastes in music. Love it or hate it, it's become the definitive test of a systems ability to boogie.

I would like to think that my efforts have taken this band out of the '£6.99 bargain bin' and moved them back onto the premium shelf, where they belong.

Dave

Dave - THanks for enlightening me

Derek

quote:

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who or what is Rammstein

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Imagine a band playing very heavy rock music, fronted by a Klingon lead singer...

Show Report - Naim Have a Serious Problem

The Oxford English Dictionary runs out of words to describe just how good their power amps are somewhere between a NAP 250 and a NAP 300.

Forget all the hype about the Naim AV demonstration and the two music rooms playing music through the more affordable Naim systems. These dems were good, seriously good. Better than any of the other dems at Bristol. (That was a full stop after Bristol !!).

The Presidential Suite and its 'by appointment' demonstration is where the serious problem lies.

The kit being demonstrated is the CDSiii/XPS/552/Supercap/NAPxxx/DBL. The power amps used in sequence are the new NAP250/300/500.

The dem starts with the 250. This is absolutely superb. You can't find more superlative adjectives to describe the way the music affects you. You can use all the best words to describe the clarity, openness, depth, power, pace, rhythm, timing etc etc etc.

The 250 isn't the problem.

The 300 is where the problem starts. Put quite simply, the Oxford English Dictionary has run out of words to describe how good the 300 actually is. The 500 is even worse !!.

Naim's serious problem has only just begun. If there are no words to do the system justice, how are they going to attract punters (that’s you and me) into the dealers showrooms to listen. The only way to appreciate these amplifiers is to go and listen. It's a bit like trying to describe a seriously good painting or sculpture or piece of music in words!! sometimes you just can't.

Sorry Paul, sorry Naim, you have a serious problem. Your PR department is going to have to go into overdrive to sort this one out!!.and you only have yourselves to blame.

Cheers

Don

[This message was edited by Don Atkinson on SATURDAY 22 February 2003 at 20:51.]

Err. You like it then?

Err, yes.

Cheers

Don

Don, sorry, but you have to try! Invent some new words!

I am dying to know - what was your take on the 300/500 separate PS "bass problem" versus the integrated PS 250?

Jeremy

Got a picture then?

JeremyB,

Sorry, but I can't even begin to invent new words.

Normally, when this situation is reached, we simply move the best words to the new product and start talking about the (now apparent) defects in the older product. We can't do that this time. First because the amps are all fairly new, so we have to move the best words three places and second there are no real defects in the 250 amp to speak about. If we allocated the best words to the 500, we would have to assign lesser words to the 300 and 250. This would mean using words for the 250 that would appear derogatory. This wouldn't be justified, at least, not with other hifi manufacturers using similar language to describe its top of the range products.

No, I'm afraid that we have simply run out of words.

As for bass problems, I didn't hear any. The 250 did a superb job. The bass sounded real. It was there, clear and deep, as it is in real life. The 300 was better. Compared to the 300, the 250 was slightly veiled. But that’s unfair on the 250 because it gives the impression that something is not quite right. This isn't the case. Compared to the 500, the 300 had slightly less control of the bass and slightly less drive and energy. But that’s unfair on the 300 because it gives the impression that something is not quite right. This isn't the case.

See the problem ?

The 250 costs about £2,000.
The 300 costs about £4,800
The 500 costs about £12,000

But you can't demand that the 500 be six times as good as the 250 or give six times as much pleasure. It probably does, but you can't demand it. Or that the 300 be two and a half times as good as a 250, it probably is, but you can't demand it. etc etc. Why ?

Because they are only part of a system that costs about £40,000 with the 500; £33,000 with the 300 and a cool £30,000 with a 250.

Does the 300 give a 10% improvement in enjoyment over the 250 ? By the shed load.

Does the 500 give a 33% improvement in enjoyment over the 250 ? By the bucket load.

Please don't read too much into the difference between shed-load and bucket-load, I'm sure they are both in the OED, but don't read too much into them, otherwise I shall have to use lorry-load; train-load; and ship-load............

Naim, you have a problem.

Cheers

Don

Muchachos

My thoughts from the show are that the new stuff is pretty much as good as described above; but the biggest bang per buck is the upgrade from 250 to 300. There is no doubt that 300 to 500 is a step forwards, but not as noticeable IMO as 250 to 300. This is also the impression of at least one of the Naim gang!

If only I could upgrade my 135s to 140s..... what a delight that would be.....

If you go and do not yet have a record cleaner, can I STRONGLY recommend - no, insist that you buy the Antistat record cleaner on the Diverse vinyl stand . I did; it works fantastically well for £40. Just tried it on 5-6 crud bound albums; I recon 90%-95% of surface noise has been removed. Sorry Malcolm!

Stallers, Don, JA Toon - pleasure to meet you.

Mike

[This message was edited by mike lacey on SATURDAY 22 February 2003 at 22:35.]

Don

My favourite word in the world - "Unglaublish" ( excuse spelling ) - German for " Unbelievable" may work. But then, it is totatlly believeable....

Mike

it works fantastically well for £40. Just tried it on 5-6 crud bound albums; I recon 90%-95% of surface noise has been removed. Sorry Malcolm!

OOooooh ! (a factor of 10 springs to mind here !!)

Also a pleasure to meet you Mike, and Malcolm and Mrs Malcolm and Miss Malcolm, plus Stallion and John Toon.

I coughed up for an audiphile pressing of Canato Domino, absolutely superb. Thank goodness I don't have a cdsiii/552/500/dbl system, otherwise I'd be lost for words.......

Cheers

Don

Mike,

We could use "Unglaublish" for the 300, but would then be stuck for the 500....

Cheers

Don