Advice needed on switch from Naim to Linn

I'm unclear if the OP doesn't want to try the Linn system and is seeking moral support here, perhaps to help sway the 'other half' who is apparently swayed by box count, or whether it is a serious consideration.

if the former, then you've got it, but whether it holds sway is another matter.

On the other hand if you genuinely have any inkling of interest in finding out, do what a number of others have suggested, and go listen. If the dealer is so confident, get him to come and instal in your house to have a real audition. Otherwise take your gear to his premises to compare. If it 'blows your socks off' compared to the present system, then go about the change in the most cost effective way you can. If it doesn't, then thank the dealer nicely for his suggestion and time...and suggest he starts selling Naim kit. Either way you can ensure you end up with whatever sounds best to you.

And afterwards tell us about it! And of course, while at it you could always try some mixing and matching between systems...

i find NAIM systems more engaging, but that is just personal opinion. I would give it a listen though and see if you like it. If it turns out it is just a matter of fewer boxes, NAIM has some solutions too like NAC-N 272 + 250DR or 300DR which are both outstanding and which I would prefer over the Linn Akurate Exact 

Hi All

I wanted to thank everybody for sharing their views and advice. I have thought about the next course of action and have decided to stay with my current setup but to upgrade my source NDS by adding a 555PS DR power supply in place of the XP5s power supply.

Thanks

Very good choice. You will be thrilled once you hear the effect this particualr power supply has on a source.

Be prepared to move those speakers around a bit, once 555PS DR settles into the system. 
555PS has a peculiar aspect on a system - it just add at least half an octave in the low end and magnifies all other parts of the sound spectrum. 

The Akurate streamer is nowhere near the NDS in terms of performance; the Klimax is where you need to be for comparison.

More importantly, what don't you like about your Naim set up?  In my experience Linn amps are boring in comparison, no matter how you crank them up they just don't boogie like a Naim amp does.

Bryce Curdy posted:

My Linn experience is neither recent nor extensive but I used to own a Karik/Numerik and Keilidh loudspeakers.  I regard both as amongst my poorer purchases, compounded by the fact that when the laser failed on the Karik and Linn were unable to replace it despite the CD player being only a few years old their response was to offer me a very modest discount on another underrated Linn CD player.  At this point I vowed never to buy any of their products ever again even in the unlikely event they were decent.  I opted for a CDX2 which blew the Karik/Numerik out the water at a modest price hike.

Coming from:

Genki/Karin/Dirak/XO bingo card/3 x LK 280's/Briks.

A Company that stands behind its products on the repair end, it worth it's weight in gold!

I made the same vow, when my Karin and Linn crossover went out!

Not Active at the moment, but the best adjectives I can use to describe the difference in Pre Amp & Amps:

The 282 appeared to present clarity and openness, while the passive 250.2's were richer and thicker sounding! 

I hear the Dred Amps are leaner, hence nothing like a demo in one's own home.

Hoped that helped!

Cdx2/282/HCDR/3 x 250.2/Fraimlite/Briks

Allante93!

DUPREE posted:

 I dumped all my CD’s anyway it is a format that was a never very good interim step to digital that is now functionally obsolete.

Rubbish -  for many of us particularly if you listen to classical music where the tagging and cataloging involved with setting up a NAS or such like can be really painful CD is a great medium.

Indeed - ripping a typical classical CD can result in chaos, especially when multiple composers are on the same CD.

Very much agree with Adam and the strat (fender) 

Back in the Day it was The Analog TT, or The Digital CD. I didn't fall into the Trap, I wheeled an LP 12 K9 and a Linn Genki! 

Now its a new Paradigm as Simon and others have pointed out! 

The Analog TT, The Digital CD, and Digital Streaming depending on Music and Mood! 

Sometimes Availability only allows for the Mechanical TT, Sometimes theres no Substitute for the raw boogie of an Digital CD, and Streaming offers the convenience and lack of moving parts that in some instances is hard to beat! 

Just my two cents! 

Thanks for enlightening the Forum, Gentleman! 

Allante93!!!!

Adam Zielinski posted:

Indeed - ripping a typical classical CD can result in chaos, especially when multiple composers are on the same CD.

The solution I found to suit me best was as follows, having tried multiple different permutations of metadata.

1. Metadata : Composer as Artist

2. Performer added in square brackets to track name.

3. Keep a separate database (actually a text file) of my entire collection, under headings (in alphabetical order) Composer> title of piece>performer(s)>original medium.  I did consider various music database programs, and in fact own one of them, but it was so cumbersome to enter the data, especially given the fact the more than 50% of the time it couldn't find the relevant album, leading me to have to enter the data manually anyway.

Perhaps cumbersome, but I ALWAYS know who wrote it, what the piece is, and who performs it.

However, it did involve a lot of extra work, especially as I always keep my Artist name in the format surname, given name, which is not the way that any of the ripping engines seem to do it.   I've always filed my LPs, CDs etc in alphabetical order of composer surname or artist surname (for rock albums etc).  After all, that's the way MOST record stores do it!

I apply a similar set of rules to non-classical tracks where there is an additional artist, by only listing the main one as Artist, and adding any others in square brackets to the track name (e.g Diamonds by Jet Harris & Tony Meehan), would have Artist as "Harris, Jet" with the track name as "Diamonds [with Tony Meehan]"

Bearing in mind that neither vinyl or CD contain any of this metadata and users of those formats have to physically pick up and read liner notes I just don't get what the problem is.

For these sorts of complex CDs I just do minimal tagging and make sure that a) the album title is accurate, b) the album art is included, c) the tracks are in the right order.

I can then pull out more details from the Rovi link in the Naim app or, at very worst, refer to the liner notes I ripped the CD from - in which case I have't lost any functionality compared to the original disc.

Re tagging, the absolutely key piece of advice is to make sure it is tight at the time of ripping - and one potential problem for newbies is not recognising tagging issues initially, partly because of lack of awareness of what is or becomes important, and partly through making assumptions - and descriptions here of what others have done are invaluable, so if nothing else read and consider before getting far down the ripping path.

i found LPs weren't a problem at all, because there was no metadata and I knew to put in an artict and album name, which I did in the form that I used in searching (surname first). But CDs were a serious problem because they do contain metadata, the fact of which I was aware before starting, and I could see seemed fine with the first one or two. So I ripped my entire CD collection without a second look, going through the lot before I even had my streamer so that it was ready. What a disaster! And one that I still haven't had time to sort out 2 1/2 years on.

it turned out that some CDs had artist's surname first, some not. Some had composer as the artist, some had the performer as the artist. And classical is even more of a nightmare: take say a symphony- the genre may be given as classical, symphony, orchestral. Occasionally (rarely) there's a sub-genre/style, which might give symphony when the genre is classical or orchestral. My only manual filtereing was to save all classical in its own folder/directory, one of three major divisions I used, so depending on the uPnP player they are viewable separately, but searching within is frustrating because of the confused metadata.

Someone mentioned the Rovi database - i found that a significant chunk of music simply wasn't recongised initially, and annoyingly even after searching for the correct album the Naim app couldn't be taught to remember so same next time. And quite a few albums simply not in the Rovi database. 

Anyway, best advice is learn ASAP (before ripping many) what tags are important for your searching, then religeously check and as necessary add/amend tags as you rip.

Innocent Bystander posted:

i found LPs weren't a problem at all, because there was no metadata and I knew to put in an artict and album name, which I did in the form that I used in searching (surname first). But CDs were a serious problem because they do contain metadata,...

Not sure what CD metadata you're referring to here. I would't go as far as saying it is rare but certainly discs with an appended CDTEXT track only account for a limited number in my collection. And I've never seen any ripping software bother to refer to it by default. Generally the metadata is downloaded from the net from services like Gracenote based on the UID of the disc.

But 100% agree that you have to get the album data right from step 1. Once you have enough to trigger an accurate lookup in Rovi then the other metadata can be fairly loosely defined (if at all).

DUPREE posted:

I don't listen to classical music and don't collect classical vinyl so I am not fully up to speed at the nuances of getting all the tagging and meta-data correct. All I can say is that after investing the time in moving my digital music all high-res FLAC, and abandoning the 3rd wheel of CD and using only LP-12 or streaming (Both hi-Rez FLAC and Spotify/Tidal streaming) and moving from Linn to a NAIM streaming solution for the first time in a decade I am listening to way more music making more time for music and enjoying it more. I also recently added a QB to an ancillary room and it has improved things even more. In general as you get older you explore musically less and less and make less and less time for it, this has reversed the trend for me. I would recommend to anyone who wished to invest in great hi-fi to look at the Naim streaming solutions, I think they are great. I also firmly believe despite being costly the 272 still punches above its weight compared to anything Linn or others have to offer.

The House has no difficulty with the assertion that the 272 offers excellent performance and indeed that streaming offers a viable option for the proletariat, but it is clear that the right honorable gentlemen owes an apology for his falsehood that other still relevant playback mediums - the long time proven silver disc - are now functionally obsolete

It sounds like the dealer was playing your wife, which is despicable and a deal breaker.

Over time, I've switched everything from Linn to Naim. To say that Linn is more polite is a polite way of stating it.

Ivor T. was in town night before last. He said that Linn dealers will apply their room optimization system to non-Linn systems as a way of building good will. It might be fun to give that a shot.

feeling_zen posted:

Bearing in mind that neither vinyl or CD contain any of this metadata and users of those formats have to physically pick up and read liner notes I just don't get what the problem is.

For these sorts of complex CDs I just do minimal tagging and make sure that a) the album title is accurate, b) the album art is included, c) the tracks are in the right order.

I can then pull out more details from the Rovi link in the Naim app or, at very worst, refer to the liner notes I ripped the CD from - in which case I have't lost any functionality compared to the original disc.

Rovi would be OK, but most of the time it fails to find my classical albums (including those ripped from CD)

I have scanned (or photographed for LPs) the album art for my collection, and can just look it up on my iPad if I really want more information.  That was because I got fed up of climbing on chairs to access albums on the top shelves.

When listening to rock, I often want to know who the guitarist etc are.  Rovi almost never tell you that.  In fact, I would say that Rovi is a complete was of space.

feeling_zen posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

i found LPs weren't a problem at all, because there was no metadata and I knew to put in an artict and album name, which I did in the form that I used in searching (surname first). But CDs were a serious problem because they do contain metadata,...

Not sure what CD metadata you're referring to here. I would't go as far as saying it is rare but certainly discs with an appended CDTEXT track only account for a limited number in my collection. And I've never seen any ripping software bother to refer to it by default. Generally the metadata is downloaded from the net from services like Gracenote based on the UID of the disc.

But 100% agree that you have to get the album data right from step 1. Once you have enough to trigger an accurate lookup in Rovi then the other metadata can be fairly loosely defined (if at all).

In retrospect I have no idea whether the metadata to which I referred had been on the CD or was source online during the ripping process - but it is irrelevant, the point being that wherever it came from, associated with the CD, it had variable approaches to what would be assigned as genre etc, which caused serious problems subsequently browsing, so DO NOT simply accept the metadata as assigned, but check every album and manually fix as required. It can be a tedious task, but is infinitely easier if done on the fly, as opposed to ending up with a collection withdisfunctional metadata, as I did.

This has gone way, way off topic.

In answer to the advice requested in the title of this topic - don't do it. End of.

May I also respectfully request that no one should ask the kind folk on the NAIM forum for advice on switching from Naim to Linn. it is plain silly.

Night, night

nigelb posted:

 

May I also respectfully request that no one should ask the kind folk on the NAIM forum for advice on switching from Naim to Linn. it is plain silly.

Night, night

Not at all. I think few of us are silly enough to see this as akin to supporting a football team or political party, and many of us either own or have owned both Linn and Naim gear. Blindly (or perhaps more accurately deafly) following anyone else's choice without auditions of one's own certainly would be plain silly, but listening to their impressions may be helpful in one way or another. Indeed, recognising that must have been one of the reasons to have a forum in the first place....

Morning....

Yes, my point is that many of us have already given the OP a view, mostly to avoid this greedy and aggressive Linn dealer and mostly giving reasons why we have gravitated to Naim (some from Linn). I too had a Linn LP12 and Linn speakers back in the day and appreciate the quality of the brand. I see hardly any suggestions in this thread of Linn alternative to try out - not surprising really. And I certainly don't need any lectures about auditioning. I thoroughly demo all upgrades at home before I buy anything. In fact earlier in the post I suggested to the OP that he test the worth of the Linn dealer but asking for a full demonstration of Linn vs the OPs Naim system to prove the dealer's rather wild claims. It has also been suggested that this is not the best place to get unbiased opinions about moving from Naim to Linn. Maybe the Linn forum might give the OP a better insight into the best options here.

We have been over this and the OP has decided to upgrade his Naim system. The forum has apparently got bored with the topic and has meandered off talking about tagging and metadata for goodness sake.

I don't blindly follow Naim, but I wouldn't think this forum is the best place for advice on how to leave the brand. It just seems silly to me. That's all.

If It was me asking this on this forum, I'd have also asked on the other, a comparison of responses helping filter out the possibly more biased, while possibly opposing views may give pointers as to the differences to look out for in subsequent evaluation. So in fact, asking here may be  precisely the right thing to do!

As for home auditioning of everything, whilst highly desirable, especially with speakers,  not everyone has the luxury of being close enough to a dealer for that to always be viable (and some people buy secondhand, not necessarily locally)