5 series reports?

The Nait 5 is superior to the Nait 3. The CD5 is different from, though not necessarily better than, the CD3.5. Higher end Naim gear is still better, obviously. A straight CDX is at least an order of magnitude better than a capped CD5.

How is the Nait 5 better, and how is the CD5 different? Other opinions?

--Eric

...is awesome.

One has to be careful when evaluating the 5 series in a Naim context because the sound is different in many ways.

Nait5:- Clean, fast, dynamic, unflappable. 30w/ch? You must be joking. We've been driving the SBLs with this thing. I never enjoyed the sound with a Nait or a 90 into SBLs. Now the Nait5 drives them like they're puppies. Source first? Pah. What a system. (Back to earth now...) At first it almost sounds boring next to a Nait3. Then you realise that what was exciting in the 3 was the sound of it getting stressed and bloating the bass. Next you realise you're playing the 5 much louder than the 3 because the 3 simply couldn't cope. The 5 has gone louder more cleanly so when it gets stressed it just shuts down! It's so clean that it's quite easy to do this! It's still obviously that Naim sound, but it's been brought bang up to date. You can tell there's 500 technology in there. Of course putting it up against a 102 or 52 still shows its shortcomings, but boy is it good...

CD5:- This is closer to the 3.5 than the Nait5 is to the 3. However, it's still a good bit of progress over the 3.5. It's now a very worthy competitor to the Densen whereas I thought the 3.5 came 2nd best. The 5 has a much more tuneful and deeper bass than the 3.5 dreamed of having (haven't tried 5 vs 3.5/*cap), and it's clean, smooth and dynamic. The choice between it and Densen is much more difficult and purely down to taste. I can see customers choosing Naim over the Densen, and yet I can see customers choosing the Densen over the Naim. That's dependant on the system they're in. In a pure 5-series system, I would choose the Naim, but in other systems, it would be a close run thing.

Regards,
Frank.

...for the info on the 5's.

And, welcome to the forum

- GregB