What have been your biggest wow moment upgrades?

Radikal and Tranquility on the LP12 then downstream the Sopra 2s. The Ovators were good but these offer a wide open sound stage. Finally on the AV side an Oppo 205 - cracking visuals but the audio performance is superb.

Never had one.

analogmusic posted:

And another wow was swapping out a chord interconnect for Vertere Dfi ones

Real wow ! moment

Could you be specific as to which Chord and Vertere cables were swapped?  Looking at Chord signature at the moment - unlikely to change course - but still interested.

Wow moments:

Replacing Rega Jupiter with the cd5i into the nait 5i.  Less resolution but a startling synergy and punch.  The Rega never felt like it belonged.

Replacing the Nac 112 with the Nac 122 - into a 5x system. 

Putting a flatcap on the cd5x - could finally forgive myself for not going straight to the cdx2.

Many wow moments 

cd5si ....cdx2

Standard Naim lC.....TQ Graphite.....TQ Black Diamond lC 

Suoernait.....250dr

250dr .....300dr

focal 1028be.....Sopra 2’s

TQ Ultra Black.....TQ Silver Diamond 

Unitilite to Nova

speakers Rega RS3 to Dynaudio Special 40s

i could listen to music all day. 

I can honesty say that every bit of my kit has had it's own wow factor.

My latest wow has been a Chord Music 4-5 Pin Din Between my Naim NAC and Supercap/Superline... I always new the Superline had even more to offer!

Richard

hastings posted:

analogmusic posted:

And another wow was swapping out a chord interconnect for Vertere Dfi ones

Real wow ! moment

Could you be specific as to which Chord and Vertere cables were swapped?  Looking at Chord signature at the moment - unlikely to change course - but still interested.

 

 

Best not go there, analogmusic is anti-Chord. 

The first time I switched my Nait2 on in 89 , Hooked since !!! Closely followed by Hugo , 250DR and my ATC19s . Honourable mention to my Fraimlite replacing regular stand , surprised by the scale of improvement. 

Haim Ronen posted:

Never had one.

perhaps you shoild trade in that Nait 3 Haim

hastings posted:

analogmusic posted:

And another wow was swapping out a chord interconnect for Vertere Dfi ones

Real wow ! moment

Could you be specific as to which Chord and Vertere cables were swapped?  Looking at Chord signature at the moment - unlikely to change course - but still interested.

Wow moments:

Replacing Rega Jupiter with the cd5i into the nait 5i.  Less resolution but a startling synergy and punch.  The Rega never felt like it belonged.

Replacing the Nac 112 with the Nac 122 - into a 5x system. 

Putting a flatcap on the cd5x - could finally forgive myself for not going straight to the cdx2.

Swapped out my Chord Clearway cables and replaced them with Vertere DFI ones.

I'm not anti-chord, I hear what they do (and well they are entertaining), but the Vertere just are more honest, more musical and preserve the musical energy better than the Chord and just sound more realistic when it comes to Timbre.

Sorry Dave J, have a listen to any Vertere cable. It's day and night kind of obvious 

Bob the Builder posted:

Haim Ronen posted:

Never had one.

perhaps you shoild trade in that Nait 3 Haim

The Nait is too good to let go and it perfectly meets my modest needs. Tried at home 200/202 which didn't do much for me. I just enjoy my "WOWless" music.

Two wholly unsurprising and predictable moments for me were first hearing a 300DR compared to my 250.2 and second, even less surprising, was a 552DR. So having got those boring examples out of the way I'd like to offer two that were wow moments in part because they were totally unexpected.  

The first was hearing the difference a SC made to a 282 compared to a HC - that took me all of 10 seconds to decide I had to have a SC.  The second was when my dealer dropped by one dark and wet evening mid-week, suggesting I might like to hear a Powerline on the Napsc powering my 282 (I had no PLs at that time). I expected to hear no difference whatsoever and I and my dealer were really taken aback at the obvious performance improvement.  I think I value those surprise moments more somehow.

For me, not a new purchase of equipment but a new house and listening room gave me a series of wow moments as fine tuning my SL2 positions finally showed how good they can be when set up right.

As for a purchase related wow, probably adding an XPS to my old CDX2 or Krystal and Kore to the LP12 or receiving my 52 & 135s back from Class A after a service.

Changing from my then Arcam Alpha one CD player to a Naim CD3 player back in 1997.  To this day there has never been quite a wow moment like that...I remember being disappointed when I first plugged my brand new CD3 in (almost returned it) but after a few days burn in, it absolutely blew me away!

A truly wonderful player of the day that gave me many years of fun & pride of ownership. 

analogmusic posted:

hastings posted:

analogmusic posted:

And another wow was swapping out a chord interconnect for Vertere Dfi ones

Real wow ! moment

Could you be specific as to which Chord and Vertere cables were swapped?  Looking at Chord signature at the moment - unlikely to change course - but still interested.

Wow moments:

Replacing Rega Jupiter with the cd5i into the nait 5i.  Less resolution but a startling synergy and punch.  The Rega never felt like it belonged.

Replacing the Nac 112 with the Nac 122 - into a 5x system. 

Putting a flatcap on the cd5x - could finally forgive myself for not going straight to the cdx2.

Swapped out my Chord Clearway cables and replaced them with Vertere DFI ones.

I'm not anti-chord, I hear what they do (and well they are entertaining), but the Vertere just are more honest, more musical and preserve the musical energy better than the Chord and just sound more realistic when it comes to Timbre.

Sorry Dave J, have a listen to any Vertere cable. It's day and night kind of obvious 

Back to Vertere? I thought you’d ditched them in favour of SL??

I have different systems (3, +1 in the car)

For my Chord Mojo, Naim don't make a 3.5mm minijack to Din SL cable. ( Plus you don't put a 2000 GBP cable on a 400 GBP DAC.)

But vertere DFI is just fine....

analogmusic posted:

 

I have different systems (3, +1 in the car)

For my Chord Mojo, Naim don't make a 3.5mm minijack to Din SL cable. ( Plus you don't put a 2000 GBP cable on a 400 GBP DAC.)

 

Hmmm. What your ears tell you should take precedence. Once I'd heard it, I was very happy to put £500 PL on a Napsc that costs about £300.

The Chord Clearway is £10 a metre, though. You can hardly define an entire range based upon your experience at that level. I think you’d agree, you’re not really in a position to advise hastings on base upon such limited experience.

I notice that even Vertere offer cables at very different price levels, gosh!

No question, replacing my 252/SC2 with a 552 was and still is my biggest WOW factor. That being said, replacing the Linn Silvers from my Urika to 552 with Chord STA completely changed my stance on cable upgrades. So much so that I later slotted in a Music for the STA Fantastic cable...

ATB,

Mark

Sounds like some of these posts may be worth copying (or moving) to the Expensive Cables. Are they worth the Money? thread as they help put some of the contributions there in context.

Meanwhile I get the impression that different people have different wow thresholds...   To me a wow is not a wow unless it is a

WOW ! ! !

Going from Mac mini/SN1/HCDR to QNAP/272/250DR (CD5XS & XPSDR stayed) and it continues to wow!  (Ducks behind the sofa and apologises to Bob.)

Roger

Over my 40 some years experience of home audio changes and upgrades most of mine have led to a fairly predicable conclusion, but a couple of years ago after upgrading my standard naim interconnect cables to Chord Sarum Super Aray i not only had a huge wow moment but also an every day since wow factor because it retains the extremely impressive quality - and then some more since the upgrade to Sarum T  : )

Debs

As someone generously pointed out above, each and every upgrade can be appreciated by someone with an appreciative mindset.   As someone who has been around the Naim orbit now for decades, both as a listener in my home system and as a sales person helping others enjoy music in their homes and lives, it is hard to rank these in but an arbitrary way.    For clarity, I"ll restrict myself to my own system's evolution over the years.    Here are some favorites turning points from my twenty five years of listening at home:

1) LP 12-    

Adding the LP 12 to my system was certainly fundamental to the way I listened to music at home.    Set up with care and loving attention by David Wilson, from Accent on Music, this was one of my favorite upgrades of all time even if my first Linn was relatively modestly equipped due to my budget limitations at the time.     In later years, I was fortunate enough to be able to add an ARO, an almost new Troika and the Naim Armegeddon power supply, set up this time by the skilled hands of my friend Chris Koster.    I still listen to this core table, and really enjoy it even though I have heard turntables which offer more than my Linn; but they are both far too expensive for me to seriously consider, and don't take away from the Linn's communicative abilities in any way.      If money were not an obstacle, the turnable I would most love to live with is the Grand Prix Monaco 2.0 from Colorado.   Perhaps I am just someone who is hugely attracted to the "Colorado sound"?

2) Naim electronics-    

Among my favorites of the countless upgrades from among the Naim stable I have made were these:

        A) The jump from something else to Naim is always a big one, perhaps the largest of all.    For me, this came in the guise of a used pair of Naim NAC 42 and a NAP 110 amp, which are still in use in a friends home all these many years later.

       B) Getting my first high end Naim pre-amp, which came for me in the form of a NAC 82 in the 90's.    Later on, adding a Supercap to the pre-amp was transformative.     This allowed me to experiment with the classic NAP 250 amp, which remains one of my favorite components in it's many iterations. 

       C) Moving to the classic series of modern electronics was a big upgrade for me.    I owned and loved the NAC 252 and NAP 300 pairing for around five years.     This core package of Naim electronics saw me through a number of other upgrades, including the improvement of my speakers from Linn Kan II"s to B & W N 804's and finally onto the Avalon loudspeaker line up.

       D) Adding a Naim NAT 01 FM tuner to my system.    This small, unassuming product has become one of my favorite products, and is probably my most used component overall.

       E) Going from a Prefix to the Superline was a huge upgrade for me.     Later on, when I was able to add a Supercap DR to my Superline, the full Naim influence on my LP 12 was completed to very good effect in my listening.

       F) Naim CD players have been among my favorites and I have owned and enjoyed many of them.     I still own and love the CDS3, with a 555 PS, which remains my personal favorite CD player for it's analog like ease and natural perspective on music.

3) Avalon loudspeakers-

        Speakers are, I have found, the most personal choices in the high end.    For me, I have always really savored the Avalon's trademark transparency and musicality, and I have enjoyed many of their fine speakers through the years.    I really loved my years combining Naim electronics with a pair of the Avalon Opus Ceramique's.    Today I use and savor a larger Avalon model from the same era called the Eidolon.

       If I could afford them, and had a large enough room to properly house them, the Avalon Saga's are by quite a large margin the speaker I would most like to live with.    It is almost impossible for my mind to grasp that this model is not Neil Patel's finest speaker, but that is a story for another day.

       Whatever you have in your home system, I have come to believe that the most important upgrade of all is to give yourself the time and space to listen to music without distraction, which is now somewhat rare for many busy people.    Try to put down your e mails and other forms of apparent connection to the outside world and just listen to music as if you were at a great concert.    Even a few minutes can be so refreshing and energizing.

      Good listening,

      Bruce

Yes there are wows and there are WOWS! And also there are the more conservative amongst us who prefer no wow at all and of course those who prefer Blimey! It was only a figure of speech I don't think I have ever said wow out loud to anything but it is nice to hear of other peoples excitement and enjoyment in what can be after all quite a solitary pursuit.

555ps dr for 272/300..... it is all different ball game