Naim price increase
- Thread starter Martyn Miles
- Start date
James
Lord of the Erg\o/s
Is slurp a good reason?
For people watching their pennies Wharfdale has always provided good speakers at an affordable price.
I vividly remember a person giving a demonstration to an Audio club of some heralded expensive big horn loaded speakers. By accident, he threw a switch and happened to be playing a Beethoven Piano Sonata on the Wharfdale bookshelfs he had there as well. It was delightful and very pleasant indeed. After a minute, he realized his mistake -got to it -and quickly switched to the big horn speakers. The performance then immediately fell to pieces -he was crestfallen. One look said it all..He knew the fact, too.
dave
Plywood King
How does one know what "slurp" would be exactly without knowing their overall financials. Regardless, would you like to be told how much you can or can't make?
The marketplace will decide in the end. At the moment, and for the last thirty years, the market seems to agree with their pricing.
Peter Stockwell
Back for more ...
Having got as far as CDX/XPS/282/Hi/200, and still wanting "more", the next steps are just way too expensive for any impovement. I still remember the Salesman flabbegasted when I said "bof!" to his CDS3/555PS/282/SC/200 demo. (I might have been auditioning the wrong upgrade, may it was the power amp I should have been aiming to upgrade). That set up was clearly better to mine, but neither of the incremental steps (SC, 555PS) were worth the money, to me.
As for a 50 year old chappie wanting a trophy, I think it's more likely to be a new car or golf clubs than hifi. Are you serious, hifi is for nerds!
I've now almost exclusively "bodged" kit made by cottage industry artisans, it doesn't have the industrial finish of naim, but sound wise it shows a clean pair of heels!
Tim Jones
pfm Member
In the past I've spent quite a lot on building a Naim system. But having got into the second hand market, I can't see myself wanting to buy anything new from them for a long, long time.
For my money (literally) the fun these days is in buying interesting s/h things, getting them serviced and seeing what happens, instead of having an oil rig or three with £50k worth of glowering kit on it...
For my money (literally) the fun these days is in buying interesting s/h things, getting them serviced and seeing what happens, instead of having an oil rig or three with £50k worth of glowering kit on it...
James
Lord of the Erg\o/s
Whether I do or or, it happens. I'd love to double my remuneration, but the market won't pay me that much because my skills and experience isn't worth that much. If I'm devious, I could indulge in a bit of puffery and fake it. But it wouldn't last.
Let's see how that lasts.
canonman
pfm Member
No, you should have started LONG ago!!I am coming up to 50, does that mean I have to start looking for a trophy
I had it 'explained' to me yesterday how important it was to space the brains from the brawn - a good pitch to sell two fraims as opposed to one, how the 5 pin cables needed the collars slack and the 4 pins needed the collars tight, etc, etc
all of which made me wonder why anyone in their right mind would spend 3K on a psu to
'upgrade' their cd player. Even with a 400 quid magical power cord thrown in this seems non sensical, especially since the din the system makes still bears little resemblance to anything I could bear for protracted listening.
Not quite the afternoon at the dentists it used to be with older Naim gear but still far from what I'd call a pleasant experience.
Really has me wondering how my cd player functions in one box.. not!
all of which made me wonder why anyone in their right mind would spend 3K on a psu to
'upgrade' their cd player. Even with a 400 quid magical power cord thrown in this seems non sensical, especially since the din the system makes still bears little resemblance to anything I could bear for protracted listening.
Not quite the afternoon at the dentists it used to be with older Naim gear but still far from what I'd call a pleasant experience.
Really has me wondering how my cd player functions in one box.. not!
dave
Plywood King
Si,
Separating boxes with transformers from boxes without has been going on for decades (far longer than the Fraim has existed in other words) and makes a difference in the sound.
Not sure what one has to do with the other but leaving DIN locks loose or tight does affect the sound but not the wallet. Which way is best varies with the supporting structure and room acoustics at high volumes. (No surprises as to what's going on in other words)
3K spent on a power supply can make a difference no other expenditure does. YMMV depending on the exact system.
Again, I'm not sure what a 400 quid magical power cord has to do with the functionality of a one or multiple box cd player but more importantly, it sounds like Naim isn't your cup of tea. I'd consider something else.
best of luck with your search,
dave
Separating boxes with transformers from boxes without has been going on for decades (far longer than the Fraim has existed in other words) and makes a difference in the sound.
Not sure what one has to do with the other but leaving DIN locks loose or tight does affect the sound but not the wallet. Which way is best varies with the supporting structure and room acoustics at high volumes. (No surprises as to what's going on in other words)
3K spent on a power supply can make a difference no other expenditure does. YMMV depending on the exact system.
Again, I'm not sure what a 400 quid magical power cord has to do with the functionality of a one or multiple box cd player but more importantly, it sounds like Naim isn't your cup of tea. I'd consider something else.
best of luck with your search,
dave
vuk
\o/ choose anarchy
i've stopped for about 7 years, but not because i lost interest. digital music still lags way behind what my turntable delivers---there has been no significant innovation at a reasonable price (let's quantify that at $7,000). i feel that a big problem here is hyperbole and delusion from young people who lack a proper benchmark (in terms of turntable and culture). it's a generation that requires cameras to auto-focus, steady the hand, evaluate the light and make artistic decisions via flower/mountain/people/sports dial.
vuk.
Cheese
Bitter lover
Oh. So the references of our generation are the only valid ones... Thanks God the young can benefit from our wisdom.
There are just as many people as there were in the past who are actively interested in learning what's necessary to produce good results. The difference is that people who used to fill family albums with out-of-focus or dreadfully underex pics (or didn't take any at all) can nowadays achieve perfectly acceptable photos. Sorry for our skills, but some of them just end up being obsolete - and I bet that when your family comes round, vuk, you use the automatic exposure of your camera (or let someone else do the job, there are automatic cameras after all). I don't see the point of manual focus when today's systems are way faster and more accurate, while still enabling you to set your focus manually when necessary. When I look at GEO or National Geographic I am not worried about today's generation of photographers.
Sorry I was being sarcastic.
I just find it bizarre that people who have laughed for years at the suggestion a decent power cord could make a difference suddenly have a road to damascus experience when naim get on the bandwagon.
As to locking or unlocking din plugs, sorry this is just laughable,
had the guy spent 3K plus the price of four powerlines? 1.6k on a new pair of speakers, he may have had a chance of hearing these this? seems to say that phono plugs don't have these 'foibles'.
Don't get me started with tight fraims/slack fraims, on screws/of screws.
Long as he is happy fine but it galls me for his sake the amount of money he has spent 'upgrading' to get from unbearable to bearable.
I'm not searching and I'm not wasting my time farting about with tight or loose collars..
and getting back on thread, fair play to Naim, when you see the light you can sell it at a decent price
dave
Plywood King
Sorry I was being sarcastic.
I just find it bizarre that people who have laughed for years at the suggestion a decent power cord could make a difference suddenly have a road to damascus experience when naim get on the bandwagon.
As to locking or unlocking din plugs, sorry this is just laughable,
had the guy spent 3K plus the price of four powerlines? 1.6k on a new pair of speakers, he may have had a chance of hearing these this? seems to say that phono plugs don't have these 'foibles'.
Don't get me started with tight fraims/slack fraims, on screws/of screws.
Long as he is happy fine but it galls me for his sake the amount of money he has spent 'upgrading' to get from unbearable to bearable.
I'm not searching and I'm not wasting my time farting about with tight or loose collars..
and getting back on thread, fair play to Naim, when you see the light you can sell it at a decent price
I've not heard the Powerline but my experiments over the years with power cords have found audible differences between some. I doubt Naim changed any disbeliever's mind about powercords but if their announcement about an upmarket cord made some doubters experiment, that's a good thing. Funny, as Naim have stated from Day One these things make a difference. Many of us knew this before they (Naim) existed however.
RCAs certainly don't have the problem with variation in mechanical connection as the DIN seems to. Unfortunately, they don't sound as good with Naim gear. Personally, I prefer mine locked tight contrary to current thinking at HQ. It's only a slight improvement regardless.
Fraim fastener and DIN tightness and all the other tweaks required to make Naim sound its best are rather easy and quick to apply assuming you know about them. On the other hand, some folks want or expect their kit to perform at its best just plonked on the stand right out of the box. For those folks, Naim may not be what they need as it requires a bit of attention now and then. Ironically, I find myself tweaking less since owning Naim gear partly because I've tried everything under the sun with my round earth systems in the past and partly because the unique system connectors and wiring schemes with Naim systems prevents convenient experimentation. That leaves far more time for just listening to music.
LOL...I've owned or heard virtually every genre of hifi system ever made and the stuff from Salisbury leaves everything else for dead IMO. But hey, that's just me. I have no problem if someone dislikes the sound of Naim and I'll be the first to tell them they should look elsewhere. I do not believe in trying to convert people to my way of thinking in the slightest.
best,
dave
Suffolk Tony
Aim low, achieve your goals, avoid disappointment.
I agree it would be totally bizarre if it didn't make a significant difference. Try one.
I tried a boutique power cord (not Naim). No difference. Rien. Nada. A mate did something similar with similar results and was sufficiently angry at being duped as he saw it that he sent off a vitriolic email to the supplier. If the Naim one makes a difference to your Naim system, and it's worth the £400 to you, good. On all the equipment I have owned a decent quality IEC lead is good enough and boutique cables don't imnprove on things.
Suffolk Tony
Aim low, achieve your goals, avoid disappointment.
I made a potentially disastrous mistake by leaving a Powerline box in view and being too tired to come up with a plausible lie I ended up having to demonstrate its benefit; even SWMBO, who has Van Gough's ear for music, agreed it made quite a difference for the better, and this was on an Armageddon power supply to an LP12.
Crazy, but there you are. Anyway, don't let's go down this old rickety road again.
Crazy, but there you are. Anyway, don't let's go down this old rickety road again.