Old Naim Naits

[Mr Pig]

... so, though I have ended up with a vintage studio main monitor system in my living room! I’ve never heard the stuff from my teens (T. Rex, Joy Division etc etc) sound better as I’m now hearing it through kit very similar to that used in its creation. The same goes for classical and jazz too.

Sure, if you have a big, capable system it can play anything well. I was talking about kit that is limited in what it can do. Lacks the speed and dynamic range to do justice to rock.

So an orchestra of classically trained musicians following a conductor who's also classically trained and all full time professionals can't time their music?

They can, but it's not the same as a rock band. Say fifty people? Even if they were all locked perfectly together, the distance between them blurs the timing. It's just not the same thing. Large scale orchestral is a blurry big picture, whoever is playing it. Relative to a tight rock band anyway.

I think it's obtuse the way many Hi-Fi snobs gravitate towards acoustic music and even insist that is the only right way to asses a Hi-Fi system. The history of modern music is electric. You think about all of the music that has shaped your life and has been culturally significant within the last seventy years and virtually all of it is electrified. The great classical composers wouldn't have been so disparaging of it. In their day it was a constant competition to find new instruments, create bigger sounds. They would have loved amplification but had to work with what they had. An orchestra wasn't necessarily the best way to fill a big room with sound, it was the only way!

 

[Mr Pig]

I always get somewhat bemused by the idea that all the work that goes into creating rhythm and precise articulation is sacrificed by some replay.

What do you mean?

 

[George J]

I always get somewhat bemused by the idea that all the work that goes into creating rhythm and precise articulation is sacrificed by some replay.

What do you mean?

I really do not have the ability to explain it more simply.

Best wishes from George

 

[Mr Pig]

I really do not have the ability to explain it more simply.

Well, explain it more complexly? ;0) Do you mean that you do not believe that a Hi-Fi system can be bad at timing?

 

[George J]

I would hardly try to make the point that some replay is more accurate than some other replay ...

You only have to listen to two quite different replay systems to realise that they probably differ in many respects. Two of which are, precision of articulation, and ability to convey rhythmic impetus.

What I find bemusing [as in puzzling] is why anyone would think that replay that fails to do well on these two points would be more suitable for classical music than rock. If these two aspects are not optimised, then I would say that the replay is not suitable for "any" music replay, but then others may disagree of course.

Best wishes from George

 

[Tony L]

I think it's obtuse the way many Hi-Fi snobs gravitate towards acoustic music and even insist that is the only right way to asses a Hi-Fi system. The history of modern music is electric. You think about all of the music that has shaped your life and has been culturally significant within the last seventy years and virtually all of it is electrified. The great classical composers wouldn't have been so disparaging of it. In their day it was a constant competition to find new instruments, create bigger sounds. They would have loved amplification but had to work with what they had. An orchestra wasn't necessarily the best way to fill a big room with sound, it was the only way!

All true, but the point remains that it is not a reference point as you the end-user/listener have absolutely no comprehension as to how it should sound unless you were actually present in the studio control room or mastering room as it is a studio-assembled music that never actually existed as anything other than individual mic feeds often recorded a part at a time onto a multi-track.

A well recorded solo piano, acoustic guitar, sax or whatever is a far better actual reference point as it exists in reality so you have some indication as to hoe close/far your system gets to that instrument. All you can do with rock or pop (unless you have personally heard the master via the control room system through which it was created) is to pick a sound you personally like, and that is fine, but it does not reflect anything of any value beyond that. It certainly has no validity as a universal reference as the dry fast lean and forward sound coming out of say a pair of Kans sounds nothing whatsoever like the massive powerful effortless sound the band heard via the huge Tannoys, Westlakes, JBLs or whatever in the control room when they created the music, i.e. all you have actually done is to pick your own colourations to your own taste (which is fine) whereas assessing via a solo piano, string quartet or whatever known real-world reference might actually end up with a far more capable and accurate system that will likely sound a lot closer to the studio reference and therefore be better on the rock/pop stuff too.

 

[Mr Pig]

What I find bemusing is why anyone would think that replay that fails to do well on these two points would be more suitable for classical music than rock.

Got you. Sure, a better system is plain better at everything. However many, if not most systems are compromised in some way or several. The nature of those compromises can effect the system's ability to do certain things effectively, for example small speakers might not be able to play very loud or convey scale very well. Typically, we will choose kit within our budget that is good enough at doing the things we value in music to make it worth having. If we can afford and accommodate a very capable system then sure, it will be able to do the full show but often that isn't the case.

What I am saying is that some kit/systems are compromised in ways that make them better at playing classical than rock, or the other way around. This is the idea you find contentious? It's not a new notion. You just have to look at the buying habits of people who like different styles of music to see patterns. Most of us are probably familiar with the terms 'PRAT' or 'pipe and slipper' which have often been used to describe equipment that has a characteristic sound and might be favoured by people with differing listening priorities. Tonal purity, timing accuracy, dynamics etc are all areas of variation and it's normal for buyers to choose the areas of strength to suit their musical tastes. You don't agree with that?

 

[Caledon1297]

While it might seem like 'stating the bleeding obvious', I use a hi-fi system purely for the enjoyment of music at home, irrespective of genre, and given that I have no idea how any of the recordings in my collection actually sound, even acoustic ones (after all. different acoustic guitars, for example, sound different, even before the potential vagaries of the recording chain), I don't waste time wondering about whether the reproduction is accurate or not, which will be heresy to some, I guess; whatever maximises my appreciation and enjoyment of the music I choose to play, gets my vote.

Perhaps there's some truth in the derogatory (or might that be 'accurate'?) definition of 'audiophile' - a person who's into hi-fi equipment, and the sound it makes, rather then music?

FWIW, I also find that classical music sounds fine on most systems, whereas some other genres do not (and no, I'm not suggesting that the system knows what genre it's playing, and adjusts its performance accordingly ) - perhaps it's because classical forms the smallest part of my collection, and I do not have the ability of the classical cognoscenti to appreciate the finer aspects of the performances? Or, as a sweeping generalisation, it's because classical music seems to suffer less at the hands of the music industry? Although, perhaps the same could be said of jazz...

Then again. I do like AC/DC, which, if this thread is anything to go by, looks as though it might be considered, by some, to be a crime approaching that of the level of not hating Naim...

 

[Mr Pig]

All true, but the point remains that it is not a reference point as you the end-user/listener have absolutely no comprehension as to how it should sound unless you were actually present in the studio control room or mastering room...

True, but the same is true of any recorded music. Yes, I know what a saxophone sounds like, there are three of them in the house and I've heard them live many times, in orchestras, jazz bands and small sax combos, but I still don't know what the one on the recording I have sounded like in real life. Can I tell if it's a Selmer or a Yanagisawa? Maybe, but that doesn't mean I know what it sounded like in the room at the time when it was recorded. Which is no different from any other recorded music. The same could be said about a Stratocaster, SG, or a Moog synth.

The only thing you can be fairly sure about is that what you are hearing in your livingroom is not exactly the same is it sound at the recording venue.

 

[Tony L]

FWIW, I also find that classical music sounds fine on most systems, whereas some other genres do not (and no, I'm not suggesting that the system knows what genre it's playing, and adjusts its performance accordingly ) - perhaps it's because classical forms the smallest part of my collection, and I do not have the ability of the classical cognoscenti to appreciate the finer aspects of the performances? Or, as a sweeping generalisation, it's because classical music seems to suffer less at the hands of the music industry? Although, perhaps the same could be said of jazz...

The industry assumption always used to be that classical music listeners tended to be older, wealthier and would be listening to the recording at home on a proper hi-fi system, i.e. the result didn’t need the dynamic compression/limiting and specific EQ to sound good on a Dansette, transistor radio, crap car stereo etc that was essential for pop and rock. Jazz has always been superb and helped even more with typically short playing times (most Blue Note, Riverside etc are 15-18 min a side) enabling the maximum dynamic range possible from vinyl.

More recently fairly cheap headphones/earbuds have become the new normal for rock and pop and it has ended up even more compressed (so you can hear everything on a bus, tube or whatever) and very bass-boosted as that tends to get lost in noisy environments. Obviously some still manages to sound very good indeed despite this, but there is certainly a very different assumption regarding end-user equipment and listening environment. Usually the further one shifts away from the mainstream the better things sound as the audience is considered more discerning and a better standard of replay kit assumed.

 

[Martyn Miles]

Are you new here...?

No.

 

[Mr Pig]

The industry assumption always used to be that classical music listeners tended to be older, wealthier and would be listening to the recording at home on a proper hi-fi system, i.e. the result didn’t need the dynamic compression/limiting and specific EQ to sound good on a Dansette, transistor radio, crap car stereo etc that was essential for pop and rock.

Yes, but that only adds the problems of reproducing mainstream music and puts higher demands on the system.

If a recording is very clean and simple, say a bint singing and an acoustic guitar strumming along, the stereo playing doesn't have to work very hard to make sense out of it. The messed up recordings you describe are never going to sound as clean but a good system can still dig through the hash and get to the music underneath. The higher the percentage of recordings your system can make sound like music, the better it is. The recordings available, not the ones you've picked! If your system can make you love the music, however bad the recording, it's a good system.

It's surprising how many 'audiophiles' don't get this.

 

[MVV]

Yes, but that only adds the problems of reproducing mainstream music and puts higher demands on the system.

If a recording is very clean and simple, say a bint singing and an acoustic guitar strumming along, the stereo playing doesn't have to work very hard to make sense out of it. The messed up recordings you describe are never going to sound as clean but a good system can still dig through the hash and get to the music underneath. The higher the percentage of recordings your system can make sound like music, the better it is. The recordings available, not the ones you've picked! If your system can make you love the music, however bad the recording, it's a good system.

It's surprising how many 'audiophiles' don't get this.

I'm with you on that which is why I use Exile On Main Street as a system tester.

 

[George J]

Got you. ...

What I am saying is that some kit/systems are compromised in ways that make them better at playing classical than rock, or the other way around. This is the idea you find contentious? It's not a new notion. You just have to look at the buying habits of people who like different styles of music to see patterns. Most of us are probably familiar with the terms 'PRAT' or 'pipe and slipper' which have often been used to describe equipment that has a characteristic sound and might be favoured by people with differing listening priorities. Tonal purity, timing accuracy, dynamics etc are all areas of variation and it's normal for buyers to choose the areas of strength to suit their musical tastes. You don't agree with that?

I am sure that had we discussed this face to face we would have found ourselves in large agreement much sooner. For example, I find pitch perfection and pitch focus are more important than sheer volume of sound, so obviously I am a radio and digital source person rather than LP. I value tonal accuracy and precise articulation over sheer volume of sound, so the ESL is my speaker of choice. No doubt that almost any heavy metal enthusiast would find their peak output too small ...

Best wishes from George

 

[Mr Pig]

I find pitch perfection and pitch focus are more important than sheer volume of sound, so obviously I am a radio and digital source person rather than LP. I value tonal accuracy and precise articulation over sheer volume of sound, so the ESL is my speaker of choice.

Exactly. It is notable that when CD was launched the first people to really get exited were the classical market. In fact, CDs are the length they are because that was the length of the longest piece of music Sony had in their classical catalogue and they insisted that the format took it on one disk.

Ironically, the Quads are quite a good match with CD as they add a warmth and 'diffuseness' that compliments digital very well.

 

[Olsen]

First meeting with Naits were three decades ago

Openend my eyes for Ion Obelisk, Onix OA21s, several Farlowe Exposure, Kan's, Royd and more good British products

Knowing the Nait compromise, they were pretty much turning my entire valve system into crap
The Naim was so much better on involvment, timing and listening joy

72/HC/250 became my reference for decades, not that it couldn't be bettered, its just my safe harbour.

The recent black boxes are different, good but way too expensive
Long live Olive and Chrome

 

[Rushboy]

First meeting with Naits were three decades ago

Openend my eyes for Ion Obelisk, Onix OA21s, several Farlowe Exposure, Kan's, Royd and more good British products

Knowing the Nait compromise, they were pretty much turning my entire valve system into crap
The Naim was so much better on involvment, timing and listening joy

72/HC/250 became my reference for decades, not that it couldn't be bettered, its just my safe harbour.

The recent black boxes are different, good but way too expensive
Long live Olive and Chrome

Do you find the naim things better than those of exposure?

 

[George J]

Exactly. It is notable that when CD was launched the first people to really get exited were the classical market. In fact, CDs are the length they are because that was the length of the longest piece of music Sony had in their classical catalogue and they insisted that the format took it on one disk.

Ironically, the Quads are quite a good match with CD as they add a warmth and 'diffuseness' that compliments digital very well.

Strangely, and now I am going to profoundly disagree with you, the ESL is easily the least diffuse speaker ever made, or at least that I have ever heard. Incisive like a razor - in fact - but also as smooth as silk when the music is.

And we have strayed a long way from Naits! My favourite was the Nail 5i, which struck me as the first grown up Nait - enough to drive an ESL with real authority.

Best wishes from George

 

[Olsen]

Do you find the naim things better than those of exposure?

Different

The X was noisy
XV / XX excellent and more powerfull than early Nait

Could live happy with either
Much better than nine out of ten boxes as of today
Just my opinion

Looking forward hearing the new Onix DNA
Fond memories of the OA21

 

[Rushboy]

Different

The X was noisy
XV / XX excellent and more powerfull than early Nait

Could live happy with either
Much better than nine out of ten boxes as of today
Just my opinion

Looking forward hearing the new Onix DNA
Fond memories of the OA21

Do you also know the newer amplifiers from exposure?