Atc Scm 11 substitution

My comment was not intended as help since Sun King had already posted that he was trying to demo one. Sun King is clearly on the right track. Comments like 'go for home demo' and 'compare between x and y' are given so often that I used an expression which is also used often.

One must be blind not to find the many many many posts regarding XSx vs SNx.

Ardbeg10y posted:

Joerand. A SN is eating the XS for breakfast after it has run many circles around it.

I can appreciate why you think so, especially in the right room and to the right ears. My SN2 (I've never heard the SN) ran circles around my Nait XS/FCXS for dynamic punch, bass command and all things hi-fi, yet for pure musicality and non-fatiguing listening in the long-term over the whole of my music holdings I'd take the latter in hindsight. SN2 was too much of a good thing in my room and brutal with marginal recordings. If my ears were 20-30 years younger and I listened primarily to modern, compressed music I suspect the SN2 would be the one to go for.

Apparently:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an audiophile in possession of a Nait XS2, must be in search of a Supernait!"

I have my SN in my ~45 square meters living room and it is fantastic. When I move it to my much smaller home office, it is too much of an amp. Prefer my Nait 5 there.

Ardbeg10y posted:

I have my SN in my ~45 square meters living room and it is fantastic. When I move it to my much smaller home office, it is too much of an amp. Prefer my Nait 5 there.

There you go. Makes perfect sense to me from a room dependence perspective.

Now I can open up a different can of worms by suggesting that the more powerful amp should provide better bass command at (presumably) lower volumes in a smaller room, but to what end if you enjoy what you've got? The Nait 5 is all about musicality.

Hungryhalibut posted:

It is that sort of comment that is really unhelpful, unlike those of Huge and Joe. How can you possibly know which the OP will prefer? There are many who prefer the Nait XS to the SN1 or the SN2 come to that. 

members 2013, 2014 advices should not be considered, but your advices yes?  i don't understand the logic, sorry.  It is exactly the same here, as in past topics on this subject : some prefer the nait xs, other the supernait, and each person shares his experience.  But as you said, nobody can decide for sun king and he will must try on his system first.

I wasn't giving advice, merely saying that I thought some advice was unhelpful. It wasn't your advice, so there seems no reason to comment. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

I wasn't giving advice, merely saying that I thought some advice was unhelpful. It wasn't your advice, so there seems no reason to comment. 

 

Hungryhalibut posted:

I wasn't giving advice, merely saying that I thought some advice was unhelpful. It wasn't your advice, so there seems no reason to comment. 

very sorry, i made an error: i wanted to respond to huge. i made a confusion.

Keler Pierre posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

I wasn't giving advice, merely saying that I thought some advice was unhelpful. It wasn't your advice, so there seems no reason to comment. 

 

Hungryhalibut posted:

I wasn't giving advice, merely saying that I thought some advice was unhelpful. It wasn't your advice, so there seems no reason to comment. 

very sorry, i made an error: i wanted to respond to huge. i made a confusion.

Keler Pierre posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

It is that sort of comment that is really unhelpful, unlike those of Huge and Joe. How can you possibly know which the OP will prefer? There are many who prefer the Nait XS to the SN1 or the SN2 come to that. 

members 2013, 2014 advices should not be considered, but your advices yes?  i don't understand the logic, sorry.  It is exactly the same here, as in past topics on this subject : some prefer the nait xs, other the supernait, and each person shares his experience.  But as you said, nobody can decide for sun king and he will must try on his system first.

Which members compared the XS 2 to the SN1 with current model ATC SCM11s in a small room with little acoustic damping (and preferably with a Logitech SBT as the source)?

Huge posted:

Keler Pierre posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

I wasn't giving advice, merely saying that I thought some advice was unhelpful. It wasn't your advice, so there seems no reason to comment. 

 

Hungryhalibut posted:

I wasn't giving advice, merely saying that I thought some advice was unhelpful. It wasn't your advice, so there seems no reason to comment. 

very sorry, i made an error: i wanted to respond to huge. i made a confusion.

Keler Pierre posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

It is that sort of comment that is really unhelpful, unlike those of Huge and Joe. How can you possibly know which the OP will prefer? There are many who prefer the Nait XS to the SN1 or the SN2 come to that. 

members 2013, 2014 advices should not be considered, but your advices yes?  i don't understand the logic, sorry.  It is exactly the same here, as in past topics on this subject : some prefer the nait xs, other the supernait, and each person shares his experience.  But as you said, nobody can decide for sun king and he will must try on his system first.

Which members compared the XS 2 to the SN1 with current model ATC SCM11s in a small room with little acoustic damping (and preferably with a Logitech SBT as the source)?

i just said it can be helpful to read some past threads on the comparison of naitxs vs supernait. I have not said it is the solution.  And here also nobody has the same system and acoustics as sun king.  For myself i find useful to read some past topics, sometimes, when i have a question....

Keler Pierre posted:

Huge posted:

Which members compared the XS 2 to the SN1 with current model ATC SCM11s in a small room with little acoustic damping (and preferably with a Logitech SBT as the source)?

i just said it can be helpful to read some past threads on the comparison of naitxs vs supernait. I have not said it is the solution.  And here also nobody has the same system and acoustics as sun king.  For myself i find useful to read some past topics, sometimes, when i have a question....

That's just the point, Sun King's system is so far away from the usual systems that most comparisons aren't really relevant.

This is exactly the problem he had originally where he was comparing speakers in a dealers showroom...
With a different source, different amp and different room - and when he got home he found the results were...   different.

exactly Huge, agree with you. Sun king problem was difficult to resolve and perhaps it is still difficult.  But i think we have all contributed to help him and now he is quite happy to have discovered what was wrong.   He will now try the nait xs in his system and wil be able to choose.   I feel he will choose the supernait, just a feeling, no more.

For me the most important part of the forum is to help people or being helped.  The other kind of topics is just for fun or sharing opinions, important also but not so much.

joerand posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

Joerand. A SN is eating the XS for breakfast after it has run many circles around it.

I can appreciate why you think so, especially in the right room and to the right ears. My SN2 (I've never heard the SN) ran circles around my Nait XS/FCXS for dynamic punch, bass command and all things hi-fi, yet for pure musicality and non-fatiguing listening in the long-term over the whole of my music holdings I'd take the latter in hindsight. SN2 was too much of a good thing in my room and brutal with marginal recordings. If my ears were 20-30 years younger and I listened primarily to modern, compressed music I suspect the SN2 would be the one to go for.

I found the same to be true with a bare XS 2 vs XS 2 + external PSU. The latter was more impressive but became overwhelming at times. The manufacturer of the PSU attributed this phenomenon to the combination of the XS 2's mid bass bump, the room and the ported speaker design being exacerbated by the PSU. He suggested a sealed speaker. I chose to return the PSU.

I'm very familiar with all things Squeezebox and my immediate hypothesis would be that its internal DAC could be the main culprit if your system and/or room already fall in the neutral-lean category. Try to borrow a decent DAC that has a reputation for having a neutral-warm sound with plenty meat-on-bones. NACA5 speaker cables can't hurt either.

If not then, unless your room is all glass, chrome and bare floors, we could conclude that the ATC 11s are not the best match for the Nait 5si and that the dealer demoed with carefully chosen audiophile material instead of music that you might actually listen to at home.

Some updates on Scm11 and Naim amps testing.

I have a XS now at home for demo. I was a bit disappointed when I found out that it was the old model with 60W output and not the new XS 2 with 70W output. I was looking forwars to her the difference between the 60, 70 and 80 watts.

My first impresion was, that the XS, even with the same power, clearly outperfom Nait 5Si. It punch much harder and has a wonderful open and clear high tones. After some 30 minutes of listening at a bit higher volume (somewhere 10 o'clock, sometimes a bit more, sometimes less), my agony returned - sound was tiering my ears, I felt very uncomfortable.

I will try the SN again and then made a final deceison. 

Forgive me, has a used Naim nDAc been suggested for your SBT, with your existing amp and speakers?

OK, if at any time you're setting the volume to over 10 o/c with modern digital music (e.g. via the SBT), then you really are driving the amp quite hard.  For use driving it this hard the extra current delivery of the SN is definitely worth while even over the XS.

N.B.  It's not at all matter of power, rather it's much more likely to be the difference in current delivery, and in this the SN excels.

Huge, I was mostly listening to analogue via my turntable.

Christopher, yes. I used dac v1 for a week. It was better, but not good. 

So, I will try SN again and this time test the internal dac also. Hope for the best.

Via a TT, the actual playback volume (and hence power and current demand on the amp) is so dependent on the cartridge and phone amp that it's impossible to know what 10 o/c means in practice (unless, of course, you are very familiar with that particular cartridge / phono amp combination - and I'm not that familiar with them).

Sun King posted:

Huge, I was mostly listening to analogue via my turntable.

Christopher, yes. I used dac v1 for a week. It was better, but not good. 

So, I will try SN again and this time test the internal dac also. Hope for the best.

I own the SBT, owned the SN1 with external PSU and have compared them before.

Compared to a bare nDAC, they are at best average. The difference is too big too ignore. But I cannot recommend the nDAC now because they are pretty expensive brand new. Try a used one.

I noticed that alot of used Hugos are on the market. They are cheap and I've heard a lot of good things about them. You can take a risk and try them.

To end the story and (just out of curiosity) question.

Supernait is here with me. In the past days I listened to a lot of music. I like the warm feel in the amp presentation. It was something I miss with Scm 11 speakers.

Why do (some) people find this amp boring, not dynamic? Even my ATC dealer (he had the same amp for about a month in his demo room) said it is flat compared to his Creek and NuPrime amps.

Sun King posted:

To end the story and (just out of curiosity) question.

Supernait is here with me. In the past days I listened to a lot of music. I like the warm feel in the amp presentation. It was something I miss with Scm 11 speakers.

Why do (some) people find this amp boring, not dynamic? Even my ATC dealer (he had the same amp for about a month in his demo room) said it is flat compared to his Creek and NuPrime amps.

what an idiot dealer...when he will sell his creek and nuprime,  he will criticize them too.

"When I move it to my much smaller home office, it is too much of an amp"

I have no idea what that means

jon honeyball posted:

"When I move it to my much smaller home office, it is too much of an amp"

I have no idea what that means

Jon,

The SN is a great amp and when setup in my living (45 sqm, fully furnitured), I can turn up the volume with no problems. When I setup the SN in my home office (16 sqm) and turn up the volume, it is too much. Same speakers - BW CM1's or CM5 S2's.

A 'problem' of the SN is that the sweet spot of the volume dial seems to be around 10. This is too loud for me in my home office.

I just have the impression that the SN loves to work. It's a slavedriver / streetfighter kind of amp. If suttle music must be played on a lower volume, it is not in its comfort zone. An XS might be better there.

It could very well be that when I pair the SN with different speakers, that it works well for me in the office. Cannot validate, have no other speakers other than active Ovators.

Hello again. 

Since I statred it, I will use this topic, altough the problem (there is always one in not with speakers anymore. It's the Supernait. 

I assigned Aux1 button to one digital input for my SBT. All good, simple procedure. I had only one cable, so I often switch between SBT and my multimedia player to direct sound from movies to Supernait.  I finally got two other digital cables to properly connect other devices to SN digital inputs and want to assign other input selection buttons. Ups, the assignment didn't work the easy way. It was a hit and miss procedure. I tried ten times, succeded once and even don't know how. But all good, SBT, media player and Playstation were connected and working via digital cables with dedicated input buttons. 

This week I borrowed a cd player, conncted it to CD input and no sound was heard. I tought that It was due to assignment process, so I did reset my SN. Preamp mode, hold programme key then display key. Cd was working fine, but then I find out that reset did unassign two digital inputs, bot not the one on Aux1. Assignment for other two inputs was again painfull. Hit and miss. I even try to do the other kind of reset (turn the SN on while holding mute button). The same. 

Any suggestions please?