Musical Fidelity have always produced quality kit at affordable prices. In the past I have used a few of their products, including an amplifier, speakers and a Dac(M1). The M1 Dac was my favourite of all of these. I did use Naim for a while but I’ve now moved on to Yamaha. I did miss my Naim at first but after a few weeks of listening the delights of the Yamaha took hold and I am enjoying my music as much as I always have.
I've owned Yamaha amps in the past, and regret selling really - beautifully made and finished, and switchable Class A/ Class AB, along with a very transparent and neutral sound.
I think the key point about Naim as regards the sound of the chrome bumper and olive models is 'impressive'. It's a sound presentation that seems quite forward in the presence range, and puts the band 'in the room' rather than you in the concert hall.
Along with a very dry spatial presentation and almost pronounced leading edges of notes, it's a very driving sound that never fails to excite on rock and pop, or when you are cranking the system up to 'demonstrate' it etc.
However, on the other hand and with natural acoustic music in particular, despite having a very full sense of timbre as regards vocals and instruments, timbral colour tended to be lacking, and the lack of proper spatial representation as heard in real life, lended a certain very impressive, but somewhat artificial sounding presentation to much acoustic music.
Additionally the pronounced leading edges of notes/dry transient response - whilst very impressive on things like snare and ride cymbal hits, could sound quite false on say some more vigorous solo piano works - unless the aim of the performer was to destroy the piano rather than play it.
In all, Naim's sound is arguably quite captivating and impressive, but not the last word of neutrality or accuracy to the original sound when the source is natural acoustic instruments in my experience.
Nothing wrong with that, as no Hifi is perfect, however, whilst I sometimes miss the excitement Naim could bring to the party on a handful of favourite recordings, I prefer the accuracy and neutrality of what I run now, as it is very rare that one has a recording that on one hand plays to the systems 'strengths' and others that just seem to sound 'off - by contrast almost any genre of music sounds 'right' and it can be quite easy sometimes to close the eyes and feel you are listening to live performance in terms of correct instrumental timbre, spatial perspectives, and a very natural and believable transient response that brings forth everything the music has to offer in terms of *cough* PRaT.
So yes, on one hand sometimes I miss the Naim HiFi presentation - but for both good and bad reasons, and wouldn't personally choose to go back.
Cheers
