Moving away from their signature sound

Maybe naim should start producing valve kits. That would please a lot around here ???? 

I a nice all in one package

Anavrin posted:

I really hope the naim signature sound isn’t being lost or diluted in any way, I’m one of the new breed of naim customer, in that I took a punt on a Mu-So a couple of years ago, then fell in love with the sound and became a fan of the Brand.

I've since bought a QB and just recently took my first proper step into HiFi and ordered a Uniti Star, which I will have to wait until the end of July for.

I just hope if there is an issue its gets sorted out sooner, rather than later.

Except ..... you’ve bought into what has been suggested as new Naim, so unless they go ‘backward’ you’e OK

fred47 posted:

Or to put in in percentages (My observation)

XS 65 procent flat earth.35 procent round earth. 

XS with flatcap: 50/50.

Nova: 70 procent round earth 30 procent flat earth,

give or take.

Can you explain in layman’s tems what you really mean by ‘flat earth’?

It suggests a belief that does not recognise reality, and surely we all want reality from our music (?).

Difficult. But I think in essence Flat earth is an emotional sound , fingersnapping. feet tapping(Naim. Rega) . Prat if you like. Round earth is a more clean and analitical sound.(Linn.Krell)

fred47 posted:

Difficult. But I think in essence Flat earth is an emotional sound , fingersnapping. feet tapping(Naim. Rega) . Prat if you like. Round earth is a more clean and analitical sound.(Linn.Krell)

Ah, foot tapping!   Even if you wouldn’t at the same piece of music live?

I don’t know about analytical - that surely is just revealing the music as recorded? Analytical is in the mind, and there are those who do analyse the structure of the music and the way people play, doesn’t a neutral and totally open and clear system let you hear the music better, whether or not you want to analyse it?

As for emotional, I think that is down to the music, whether recorded or live - and if it has emotion in it, you don’t need a great system to feel it as it is in the tune or the voice and the way they are expressed (and nothing to do with rhythm, pace or timing) - witness last week  Jeff Beck playing the vocal line of Nissun Dorma on guitar, even heard through a crummy TV speaker.   I don’t believe all music inevitably has real emotion in it - but maybe flat earth is trying to create it where it doesn’t exist, to improve it for the listener? 

Oh It does exist! Not always but its there. Just recently I heard a Linn set costing 70.000 Euros. I fel asleep with a big Yawn.I guess round earth can be very reveling, you hear all kind of little nuances floating around you. Maybe the brain can not deal with so much extra information.

fred47 posted:

Oh It does exist! Not always but its there. Just recently I heard a Linn set costing 70.000 Euros. I fel asleep with a big Yawn.

You’ve never been to a live gig played woodenly? There might be emotion in the piece of music being played (thougn I do not accept that all music is written with emotion (witness some of the attempts at pop music over the years trying to follow a formula to become a ‘hit’), but muxicians can kill it, or at least subdue it.

I’m a flat earth fan for sure. Google it, another well known forum has a very very good  explanation .

i went to a killers concert the other night. Wow what a great show, but the sound was awful where we were seated.  The bottom end was over killed, lyrics were hard to pick up on. Yet in the same Arena a few months ago, we  went to a midnight oil concert. We had  almost the same seating area. The sound was  superb, I was thinking at the time, its just a big Naim Audio system!

 The Las Vegas killers concert I enjoyed, but the midnight oil sound was really very enjoyable. Good sound is the most important part of any music live or at home. Poor sq emptys clubs and bars live or not. 

I have a 272/555DR + 300DR + Spendor SP2s

With Bach concerti and other Baroque counterpoint, I can easily follow all 3 or 4 counterpointed themes (analytical / round Earth)
With the jig at the end of Kara's Union Street, I just want to get up and dance (foot tapping / flat earth).
With Ari Mason's The Curse, I feel the confusion & anger and the complex rhythms (but it's hard to foot tap to something that relies so much on syncopation, so...  ?)
With Beethoven's 7th (SCO, Macerras) I feel his despair at his failing body, then the joy of his reconciliation as he finds he can still write music (analytical and emotional)

Perhaps better kit just lets you listen to whatever's there (multiple themes, intellectual design, emotional performance, rhythm) without removing so much from the signal.

Huge posted:

I have a 272/555DR + 300DR + Spendor SP2s

With Bach concerti and other Baroque counterpoint, I can easily follow all 3 or 4 counterpointed themes (analytical / round Earth)
With the jig at the end of Kara's Union Street, I just want to get up and dance (foot tapping / flat earth).
With Ari Mason's The Curse, I feel the confusion & anger and the complex rhythms (but it's hard to foot tap to something that relies so much on syncopation, so...  ?)
With Beethoven's 7th (SCO, Macerras) I feel his despair at his failing body, then the joy of his reconciliation as he finds he can still write music (analytical and emotional)

Perhaps better kit just lets you listen to whatever's there (multiple themes, intellectual design, emotional performance, rhythm) without removing so much from the signal.

YES YES YES!

The Naim signature sound. It’s been around for years and years in fact centries. 

Sounsfaber posted:

Huge posted:

I have a 272/555DR + 300DR + Spendor SP2s

With Bach concerti and other Baroque counterpoint, I can easily follow all 3 or 4 counterpointed themes (analytical / round Earth)
With the jig at the end of Kara's Union Street, I just want to get up and dance (foot tapping / flat earth).
With Ari Mason's The Curse, I feel the confusion & anger and the complex rhythms (but it's hard to foot tap to something that relies so much on syncopation, so...  ?)
With Beethoven's 7th (SCO, Macerras) I feel his despair at his failing body, then the joy of his reconciliation as he finds he can still write music (analytical and emotional)

Perhaps better kit just lets you listen to whatever's there (multiple themes, intellectual design, emotional performance, rhythm) without removing so much from the signal.

YES YES YES!

The Naim signature sound. It’s been around for years and years in fact centries. 

Oh dear, no hope for me, then! I have never tried following counterpointed themes, only felt like dancing a jig when in the company of others (though I can’t help but move with it when I try to play one on the violin), and whilst I like Beethoven’s 7th I have never sensed the composer’s failing body through it (though I will listen differently next time I play it). But when I play music I tend to be drawn into it, to the extent that I really struggle if assessing different hifi gear, rapidly forgetting that’s what I’m supposed to be doing, and I get transported to previous times and people and places, especially live gigs, with some music, reliving them, and have to wipe tears from my eyes listening to some music due to the intensity of emotion it conveys,  and fall into deep introspection with other music, and feel totally uplifted after listening to others. Sometimes several of these things at once.

However, i don’t think this has changed fundamentally as my system has improved over time, though now I sometimes find myself at some point in a listening session mentally pinching myself as a reality check, scarcely believing that I am fortunate enough to hear music sounding as good as this, which thought might be triggered after a particularly moving piece. However, what I have found increasingly the case with system improvements is the more I listen the more I want to listen.

This to me is musical heaven - though I think for me the earth is more globular than flat,  given that I simply want my music to sound natural, and I very rarely foot tap ...and I have never, ever, finger-snapped to music (and dislike it when others do!).

sorry, this is a bit of a digression from the theme of this thread, though related.

I think you make a very pertinent point, Fred.

Levity or Leviticus?

Okay; time to get serious/boring.

I was introduced to Naim Audio in 1982 when I made my first purchase of a 32.5/160. Club membership was then an arcane delight; and continued to be so for many years.

Naim amplification back in those heady pre-digital days was largely designed by ear (and personal preference) on the chosen/most common (arguably) best source available; the relatively warm sounding Linn LP12. Ergo; the amps of that era had a unique sonic signature. Ditto the early Naim loudspeakers.

A Naim dealer once said to me 'Digital is the great leveller' and I think that streaming has brought more weight to that assertion.

Add to that, the fact that Naim has to some extent been corporately absorbed and its new masters have their eyes principally on profit and growth as opposed to appealing to a select and small band of purists. Super-cables with super profit margins Sir? A fine indicator of how things have changed/evolved.

I think the Naim sound has to become more mainstream (flat Earth?) with a broader market appeal to survive commercially, and if that's the price we have to pay for Naim to stay in business and be able to develop and manufacture such wonderful products as the Statement amps; so be it.

On a practical level Fred, it sounds as though the Nova and Harbeths aren't gelling together, so maybe one of them needs to change to re-establish satisfying musical synergy?

Good luck.

John.

Beethoven's 7th is an amazing work.

The first movement makes stylistic references to his earlier work.

The second movement entwines the mechanical, almost metronomic themes with the flowing soaring themes that are always brought down by the primary mechanical theme.  The mechanical theme represents his deafness - the failing of the mechanism that is his body, the soaring themes represent his spirit alternately winning despite his failing hearing but then repeatedly being brought low again.  The final bar is the crux of the matter, the last three notes are bowed (rather than the preceding pizzicato) - compare this to the Heiligenstadt testament to see the importance of this change within the mechanical theme.

The third and fourth movements are the elation of overcoming the limitations of his deafness and the victory of his spirit over adversity; finishing with the resolution from his acceptance of his condition and the re-affirming of the value and purpose of life.

It's an extremely difficult work to get 'just right', and in my opinion the SCO Macerras recording is currently the best there is.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Sounsfaber posted:

Huge posted:

I have a 272/555DR + 300DR + Spendor SP2s

With Bach concerti and other Baroque counterpoint, I can easily follow all 3 or 4 counterpointed themes (analytical / round Earth)
With the jig at the end of Kara's Union Street, I just want to get up and dance (foot tapping / flat earth).
With Ari Mason's The Curse, I feel the confusion & anger and the complex rhythms (but it's hard to foot tap to something that relies so much on syncopation, so...  ?)
With Beethoven's 7th (SCO, Macerras) I feel his despair at his failing body, then the joy of his reconciliation as he finds he can still write music (analytical and emotional)

Perhaps better kit just lets you listen to whatever's there (multiple themes, intellectual design, emotional performance, rhythm) without removing so much from the signal.

YES YES YES!

The Naim signature sound. It’s been around for years and years in fact centries. 

Oh dear, no hope for me, then! I have never tried following counterpointed themes, only felt like dancing a jig when in the company of others (though I can’t help but move with it when I try to play one on the violin), and whilst I like Beethoven’s 7th I have never sensed the composer’s failing body through it (though I will listen differently next time I play it). But when I play music I tend to be drawn into it, to the extent that I really struggle if assessing different hifi gear, rapidly forgetting that’s what I’m supposed to be doing, and I get transported to previous times and people and places, especially live gigs, with some music, reliving them, and have to wipe tears from my eyes listening to some music due to the intensity of emotion it conveys,  and fall into deep introspection with other music, and feel totally uplifted after listening to others. Sometimes several of these things at once.

However, i don’t think this has changed fundamentally as my system has improved over time, though now I sometimes find myself at some point in a listening session mentally pinching myself as a reality check, scarcely believing that I am fortunate enough to hear music sounding as good as this, which thought might be triggered after a particularly moving piece. However, what I have found increasingly the case with system improvements is the more I listen the more I want to listen.

This to me is musical heaven - though I think for me the earth is more globular than flat,  given that I simply want my music to sound natural, and I very rarely foot tap ...and I have never, ever, finger-snapped to music (and dislike it when others do!).

 

sorry, this is a bit of a digression from the theme of this thread, though related.

Only one thing better than listening to music is making music especially with a like-minded friend . This also gets my foot tapping, head bopping and blood running. Im sure it’s the playability of pRat. Hard to describe....when you hear a tight band trust me if  you’re having great fun they are having more. Funny thing playing a musical instrument,  no matter how accomplished you are everybody can get a little bit of that buzz. Pick up a guitar learn 3 cords and find a friend to play with GOLD. 

J N yes you have nailed it. I have a good friend that has been trying to get me to update my kit, tells me technology has come along way etc. my reply is always but I like what I have....some things are just best left alone. Very interesting to read about how things were done, grass rootS you could say. Thank you.

Huge after reading your description of Beethoven’s No. 7 I became  curious . I just had to have a look at my CD collection in the hope it  just maybe it’s hiding In the cob webs. While I couldn’t find no. 7 I did find no. 6 in F major op. 68 and no.8 in F major op.93.  Luckily the other person that lives here has some culture. Bit of a shame on the quite pieces I can hear the CDs2 clicking away, I started to think I should get a server player thing.... then it went to i don’t think so!

thank you for the insight and wonderful description i shall order it asap.

Sounsfaber posted:

Huge after reading your description of Beethoven’s No. 7 I became  curious . I just had to have a look at my CD collection in the hope it  just maybe it’s hiding In the cob webs. While I couldn’t find no. 7 I did find no. 6 in F major op. 68 and no.8 in F major op.93.  Luckily the other person that lives here has some culture. Bit of a shame on the quite pieces I can hear the CDs2 clicking away, I started to think I should get a server player thing.... then it went to i don’t think so!

thank you for the insight and wonderful description i shall order it asap.

 

I’ve experienced the ticking/clicking transport issue with previous Naim CDP’s and found that it was caused by slightly off-centre discs causing the laser head to track quickly back and forth. 

Good puck-grip is of course important to smooth operation/rotation.

John. 

Fred

I think we agree at least on Linn, but to strectch the analogy I most definitely do not agree the Nova is 70% Linn. 

Olly

Huge posted:

Beethoven's 7th is an amazing work.

The first movement makes stylistic references to his earlier work.

The second movement entwines the mechanical, almost metronomic themes with the flowing soaring themes that are always brought down by the primary mechanical theme.  The mechanical theme represents his deafness - the failing of the mechanism that is his body, the soaring themes represent his spirit alternately winning despite his failing hearing but then repeatedly being brought low again.  The final bar is the crux of the matter, the last three notes are bowed (rather than the preceding pizzicato) - compare this to the Heiligenstadt testament to see the importance of this change within the mechanical theme.

The third and fourth movements are the elation of overcoming the limitations of his deafness and the victory of his spirit over adversity; finishing with the resolution from his acceptance of his condition and the re-affirming of the value and purpose of life.

It's an extremely difficult work to get 'just right', and in my opinion the SCO Macerras recording is currently the best there is.

Huge - I’m always torn between the 3rd and 7th as my favorite.   So I have to try the Macerras - will do

Sounsfaber posted.

 

YES YES YES!

The Naim signature sound. It’s been around for years and years in fact centries. 

Linn got there first.

Olly posted:

Fred

I think we agree at least on Linn, but to strectch the analogy I most definitely do not agree the Nova is 70% Linn. 

Olly

That"s why it says "give or take".

J.N. posted:

I think you make a very pertinent point, Fred.

Levity or Leviticus?

Okay; time to get serious/boring.

I was introduced to Naim Audio in 1982 when I made my first purchase of a 32.5/160. Club membership was then an arcane delight; and continued to be so for many years.

Naim amplification back in those heady pre-digital days was largely designed by ear (and personal preference) on the chosen/most common (arguably) best source available; the relatively warm sounding Linn LP12. Ergo; the amps of that era had a unique sonic signature. Ditto the early Naim loudspeakers.

A Naim dealer once said to me 'Digital is the great leveller' and I think that streaming has brought more weight to that assertion.

Add to that, the fact that Naim has to some extent been corporately absorbed and its new masters have their eyes principally on profit and growth as opposed to appealing to a select and small band of purists. Super-cables with super profit margins Sir? A fine indicator of how things have changed/evolved.

I think the Naim sound has to become more mainstream (flat Earth?) with a broader market appeal to survive commercially, and if that's the price we have to pay for Naim to stay in business and be able to develop and manufacture such wonderful products as the Statement amps; so be it.

On a practical level Fred, it sounds as though the Nova and Harbeths aren't gelling together, so maybe one of them needs to change to re-establish satisfying musical synergy?

Good luck.

John.

 

 

 

I find it difficult to understand why I (some have made that sugestion) should change my speakers. They gave such a thrill in my previous xs set.So its hard to understand why the Nova is less engaging with the same speakers and setup. Surely it makes me think it is a Nova problem. And yes I guess Naim is going more mainstream, and yes it may be a software glitch( maybe delibriate maybe not . What strikes me that  a lot of people in the Dutch Naim topic forum has since then moverd away from Naim and found there audio heaven in the Scottish mountains.

Hi Fred,

as much as I understand your view, there is more than a little substance to the speaker suggestions. Harbeth speakers are nice at what they do at how they sound. But engaging is not among the first ten or so words I would use to describe them. 

Your previous XS/Harbeth setup may have been a combination of slightly forward electronics and laid back speakers. The same speakers and less forward electronics may sound unengaging to you.

Good luck!

On the other hand "Laidback" is not a term I would use to describe Harbeth speakers. Maybe other Naim/Harbeth owners have something to say to! Please do.

To the OP, I think sone were just suggesting that if you change any one component in a system it can throw off synergy and as such all bets are off. 

For example, in my current setup I went from a 250.2 to a 250DR and it broke the spell and just did not get on with my speakers. That is a much less dramatic change than going from XS separates to a Nova.

When you have just 2 components in a system (Nova plus the Harbeths) and it ain't working you have to choose which component to muck around with. In situations where you feel overall it is better but missing "something" speakers can be the low hanging fruit.

But I don't think it is as clear cut as some have suggested. If you carefully chose the Harbeths to work welk in your room, then changing speakers could be a massive risk fraught hurdle. I'd be more inclined let it run in more, play with speaker placement (different amp power capabilities often change how much toe-in is required. Less current often needs more toe-in); and if that doesn't do it for you, go back the XS but maybe get the detail you crave by upgrading the streamer with a DAC or something.