guiller
Toscaninichus Australis
If Jean Paul Sartre was an audiophile, he would have agreed with this remark!
My thoughts on three CD players: Naim, Musical Fidelity, and Jolida
- Thread starter Mr. Lin
- Start date
If Jean Paul Sartre was an audiophile, he would have agreed with this remark!
Old_Tech
Yer-isn't!
I was thinking about this last night while considering how the Magnavox and Marantz differed. The Marantz has a warmer sound somewhat more refined in that it calms harshness that may be present in the high frequencies without removing realism. The Magnavox has sharp definition and placement without the warming effect I described. It also has soundstage dimensional effects that are very intriguing. The Marantz does as well but in a different way.
I already know the Marantz is the winner but as you have found, another player can reveal it's personality in a good way and that can be refreshing.
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
The further I go with this thing, the more I seem to slightly prefer solid state over tubes. This kind of surprises me. Of course, I have a pair of Bottlehead Paramour SET mono-blocks waiting to be assembled, 3.5wpc from a 2A3 tube, we'll see how that goes.
I think there are benefits to having a tube buffer, but when you get down to it, they do take away some transparency. As the Jolida also uses the tubes as a buffer, I wonder what something like the Astin Trew CD player would be like since it has the 6922 tubes directly in the signal path at the start of the circuit, where they're allegedly most effective.
Still, I find it hard to imagine that anyone would listen to the Jolida and not find it at least pleasant. One AKer recently pm'd me about a used 100A that he'd bought, and he wasn't crazy about it. Although he thought it had a lot of good characteristics, he felt that instruments like the piano, for instance, sounded somewhat artificial, and were a bit blurred. I suggested he get rid of the stock tubes in favor of something better, but he remained unconvinced that this would change things enough - and frankly I don't blame him. A good CD player, he said, but not for him. I haven't talked to him since so I'm not sure what, if anything, he traded the Jolida for.
Sort of like the Being and Nothingness of CD players?
I read a lot of positive comments about Marantz's current lineup of CD players.
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
As I type this I'm listening to Alessandro Scarlatti's Inferno on the Naim. The way this CD player reproduces female vocals is very impressive if the recording is good. On lesser CD players some of these CDs were fatiguing due to a shrillness in the higher frequencies, when higher vocal notes were hit. On the CD5i-2 the singer is usually dead center, seeming to "float," with space around the voice. The voice itself is warm and substantive, but still sounds very realistic. It makes this type of music much more enjoyable.
guiller
Toscaninichus Australis
Many thanks. This is the type of comments I value the most!
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
Well then hopefully this will help too:
Tonight I've switched back over to the Musical Fidelity. Just before switching CD players I listened to Inferno again on the Naim, then immediately set up and listened to it on the Musical Fidelity. There were a lot of similarities, but some slight differences in the way the female voice was presented. As I've come to expect from this CDP, there was an airier feel to the music, a little more detail, a bit of softening of the sound, and although the vocal parts sounded great, I felt like they slightly lacked the same dimensionality around the voice that you get with the Naim. That's quite an amazing sensation, namely because it's fascinating how our brain interprets sounds in such subtle ways.
So in other words the woman's voice sounded a little flattened, still realistic, but less so than the Naim.
Well then hopefully this will help too:
Tonight I've switched back over to the Musical Fidelity. Just before switching CD players I listened to Inferno again on the Naim, then immediately set up and listened to it on the Musical Fidelity. There were a lot of similarities, but some slight differences in the way the female voice was presented. As I've come to expect from this CDP, there was an airier feel to the music, a little more detail, a bit of softening of the sound, and although the vocal parts sounded great, I felt like they slightly lacked the same dimensionality around the voice that you get with the Naim. That's quite an amazing sensation, namely because it's fascinating how our brain interprets sounds in such subtle ways.
So in other words the woman's voice sounded a little flattened, still realistic, but less so than the Naim.
It's all these little details that make playing with all this gear so fascinating. I'm sitting here enjoying the hell out of my Cambridge Audio 640c V2 right now... the same player that I despise in my main system. It just works much better with the system I put together tonight, with a little Sony TA-n86b Class A amp and a TA-e86b preamp driving my Kef 103.2 speakers. All of this gear has sounded annoyingly bright when with other gear...so you think that it would sound bad together. But it sounds really good. Maybe I should try my Sony CD player that knocked the 640c out of main system contention before the Marantz showed up? You just never know what's going to work.
The most interesting thing, to me at least, is that dropping my speakers onto stands that are nearly a foot shorter helped the sound more than changing all of the amplification. I knew they were too high for my listening position (a low Japanese platform bed)...but this changes everything and I feel stupid for not trying it earlier because I knew it would work.
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
You'd better believe it! :yes:
Based on all the acclaim your Cambridge Audio CD player gets I was surprised at your tepid response to it, and you're not alone. So it makes sense that, in the right system, it does shine.
I've had similar experiences with certain components working better in different systems. For example, at first my Outlaw 2150 was in my main system, then I grew out of it and replaced it with something more serious. Eventually I put the Outlaw in a secondary system with the Rega Planet CD player and Tekton 3.1 speakers - which have a single 3" full-range driver each, so no crossover circuit whatsoever (and modified inside by me
). This was a wonderful system, and the shortcomings of the Outlaw that I'd heard in my main system didn't bother me in the secondary one. And those 3.1 Tektons are extremely revealing now that I've replaced the binding posts with Eichmann copper ones and rewired the inside with OCC solid copper with a smaller gauge of solid silver in parallel. There's more, but that's another story. My current setup leaves a lot to be desired since I moved about five months ago, or so. I still haven't been able to put together my best components for a main system, for various reasons. Consequently, I've been listening almost exclusively to CDs with the Grado SR-325i headphones for months now, and I've found it very satisfying. Plus some of the differences between these CD players are easier to detect with headphones. Then again, others may not be.
We'll see what happens when I get everything set up properly in another room. I drool at the thought of having my Audcom integrated hybrid amp, Naim CD5i-2, and the aforementioned Tekton 3.1 speakers. :drool:
Then there's that whole vinyl thing... those haven't been touched in a while and I'm beginning to get that itch again. :headscrat
eclein
Retired Drummer
Its always amazing to me how much the sound can change with something as simple as a tube change or component change. When I first got into tube stuff a year ago I had no idea that the sound could change so much with just one tube change. I have come to find that many pieces of gear that I would have previously thought would not change the sound have in fact done just that. Every piece adds or subtracts certain sound attributes, its finding the nicest sounding collection of them that makes this hobby fun!!
Enjoy!!
Enjoy!!
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
Thanks!
This is sort of why I harp on the subject of how important little differences are when you look at the big picture. Your system is the sum of its parts, everything counts, and just because a change is subtle or not immediately evident when you begin listening doesn't necessarily mean it's less significant than more obvious changes, IMO at least.
guiller
Toscaninichus Australis
I am in a state of constant amazement at the level of sensitivity of human hearing. Here we are talking about small details in a audio system, but we also capable of discerning minor differences in live performances, like changes in sound due to different relative positions among musicians, and so on. Hearing is very refined, among the senses, I would say!
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
I agree, that's why I've always kind of scoffed at those who claim we can't trust our ears, that everything is a big illusion. If you can't trust your ears you need to find a new hobby, that's what I say. Maybe I should make that my new signature.
If you can't trust your ears you need to find a new hobby, that's what I say. Maybe I should make that my new signature.
I think you should. A hobby that is solely about listening, filled with people who say that listening is flawed. I don't get it. I can hear the most subtle of differences...repeatedly and consistently, day after day after day.
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
No you can't, you just think you can because of what your components look like.
(sorry TerryO)"If you can't trust your ears, you need to find a new hobby." I've been hesitant about saying it here, although during a phone conversation with one of the moderators he actually said it's definitely within the lines. My apprehension pertains to the AK slogan, but I've already said it a couple times in other threads, in TOL.
guiller
Toscaninichus Australis
If you can't trust your ears you need to find a new hobby, that's what I say. Maybe I should make that my new signature.
:thmbsp:
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
This is straying slightly off topic, but it involves the Naim.
The CD changer in my girlfriend's car broke, much to my delight. I say that because her car, if you can believe this, actually has a Nakamichi cassette deck in it stock. And I have a Nak BX-1. You see where this is going.
In the past I've recorded a few lps to tape for her to use in her car, and she remarked that they sounded better than any CD ever has when the CD changer in the car still worked. Not a surprise, especially since I labored away for hours setting everything up just "so" with my best gear, and in the end actually had some 100% analog recordings that went straight from the turntable outputs to my Wright 200C tube phono preamp, then directly to the inputs of the Nak. And she's generally the harshest critic of my gear, probably because she doesn't understand why I spend so much on it, but that's another thread.
More recently, she's begun to grow tired of those tapes, so new recordings were in order (after I begged her to put off getting another CD player for the car just a little longer so as not to spoil this rare opportunity for me). The analog system is still packed up from a recent move. The difference this time around is that I have some outstanding CD players. I was very curious how something taped from the Naim or Musical Fidelity would come out.
Obviously the major limiting factor here is the Nakamichi BX-1 tape deck, which was their entry-level model. However, those of you familiar with good cassette decks probably know that even Nakamichi's entry-level model was better than top models from some other companies. It really is a very nice machine. Moreover, I have a collection of NOS cassette tapes I collected a couple years ago, the size of which is actually embarrassing - let's just say I got carried away.
Due to the potential loss of the cassette used (three were already ruined in the past due to extreme heat in the car), I decided to forgo the use of the more exotic cassettes and use my "bread and butter" tape, the TDK SA-X, of which I have an enormous supply, and a Denon HD6 100 minute tape.
On the Denon I recorded New Order's "Get Ready" on one side, and Death Cab for Cutie's "Transatlanticism" on the other (the latter one of her favorites, the former one of mine). Both albums fit perfectly at just under 50 minutes each. On the SA-X I recorded a band from the early nineties called Lush, the album is called "Split." They're sort of an off-shoot of the shoegazer genre but not quite that sound.
Without getting into great detail, I used Cardas Myrtlewood blocks and Herbie's "Tenderfoot" footers under the Naim, and just the blocks under the Nak. Interconnects were my own models, all silver conductors.
It's worth noting that "Transatlanticism" is not a hi-fi recording by any means, so it sounded good, but it couldn't sound better than that. New Order's "Get Ready" fared much better, with powerful, well-controlled bass, a ton of detail, and proper tonality that actually made parts of the album sound different after all these years! The Lush album was even better. We've listened to the CD in her car plenty of times in the past, but this was a different experience altogether. Similar to how the New Order album turned out, just so much more alive than what we normally heard.
How does this make any sense? How could a cassette that's a copy of a CD sound better than the CD itself? It should be impossible. The answer, I'm sure, is the source CD player used, which was of course the Naim. The Nak BX-1 created a recording faithful enough to what the Naim gave it that we were treated to an incredible listening experience, this in a car where we normally listen to what's probably a low-level quality CD changer.
Thank you, if you managed to read all of that.
The CD changer in my girlfriend's car broke, much to my delight. I say that because her car, if you can believe this, actually has a Nakamichi cassette deck in it stock. And I have a Nak BX-1. You see where this is going.
In the past I've recorded a few lps to tape for her to use in her car, and she remarked that they sounded better than any CD ever has when the CD changer in the car still worked. Not a surprise, especially since I labored away for hours setting everything up just "so" with my best gear, and in the end actually had some 100% analog recordings that went straight from the turntable outputs to my Wright 200C tube phono preamp, then directly to the inputs of the Nak. And she's generally the harshest critic of my gear, probably because she doesn't understand why I spend so much on it, but that's another thread.
More recently, she's begun to grow tired of those tapes, so new recordings were in order (after I begged her to put off getting another CD player for the car just a little longer so as not to spoil this rare opportunity for me). The analog system is still packed up from a recent move. The difference this time around is that I have some outstanding CD players. I was very curious how something taped from the Naim or Musical Fidelity would come out.
Obviously the major limiting factor here is the Nakamichi BX-1 tape deck, which was their entry-level model. However, those of you familiar with good cassette decks probably know that even Nakamichi's entry-level model was better than top models from some other companies. It really is a very nice machine. Moreover, I have a collection of NOS cassette tapes I collected a couple years ago, the size of which is actually embarrassing - let's just say I got carried away.
Due to the potential loss of the cassette used (three were already ruined in the past due to extreme heat in the car), I decided to forgo the use of the more exotic cassettes and use my "bread and butter" tape, the TDK SA-X, of which I have an enormous supply, and a Denon HD6 100 minute tape.
On the Denon I recorded New Order's "Get Ready" on one side, and Death Cab for Cutie's "Transatlanticism" on the other (the latter one of her favorites, the former one of mine). Both albums fit perfectly at just under 50 minutes each. On the SA-X I recorded a band from the early nineties called Lush, the album is called "Split." They're sort of an off-shoot of the shoegazer genre but not quite that sound.
Without getting into great detail, I used Cardas Myrtlewood blocks and Herbie's "Tenderfoot" footers under the Naim, and just the blocks under the Nak. Interconnects were my own models, all silver conductors.
It's worth noting that "Transatlanticism" is not a hi-fi recording by any means, so it sounded good, but it couldn't sound better than that. New Order's "Get Ready" fared much better, with powerful, well-controlled bass, a ton of detail, and proper tonality that actually made parts of the album sound different after all these years! The Lush album was even better. We've listened to the CD in her car plenty of times in the past, but this was a different experience altogether. Similar to how the New Order album turned out, just so much more alive than what we normally heard.
How does this make any sense? How could a cassette that's a copy of a CD sound better than the CD itself? It should be impossible. The answer, I'm sure, is the source CD player used, which was of course the Naim. The Nak BX-1 created a recording faithful enough to what the Naim gave it that we were treated to an incredible listening experience, this in a car where we normally listen to what's probably a low-level quality CD changer.
Thank you, if you managed to read all of that.
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
Too bad the cassette deck in my Civic broke years ago, but that almost certainly would not have sounded as good.
Art K.
The Voodoo You Do!
This is straying slightly off topic, but it involves the Naim.
The CD changer in my girlfriend's car broke, much to my delight. I say that because her car, if you can believe this, actually has a Nakamichi cassette deck in it stock. And I have a Nak BX-1. You see where this is going.
In the past I've recorded a few lps to tape for her to use in her car, and she remarked that they sounded better than any CD ever has when the CD changer in the car still worked. Not a surprise, especially since I labored away for hours setting everything up just "so" with my best gear, and in the end actually had some 100% analog recordings that went straight from the turntable outputs to my Wright 200C tube phono preamp, then directly to the inputs of the Nak. And she's generally the harshest critic of my gear, probably because she doesn't understand why I spend so much on it, but that's another thread.
More recently, she's begun to grow tired of those tapes, so new recordings were in order (after I begged her to put off getting another CD player for the car just a little longer so as not to spoil this rare opportunity for me). The analog system is still packed up from a recent move. The difference this time around is that I have some outstanding CD players. I was very curious how something taped from the Naim or Musical Fidelity would come out.
Obviously the major limiting factor here is the Nakamichi BX-1 tape deck, which was their entry-level model. However, those of you familiar with good cassette decks probably know that even Nakamichi's entry-level model was better than top models from some other companies. It really is a very nice machine. Moreover, I have a collection of NOS cassette tapes I collected a couple years ago, the size of which is actually embarrassing - let's just say I got carried away.
Due to the potential loss of the cassette used (three were already ruined in the past due to extreme heat in the car), I decided to forgo the use of the more exotic cassettes and use my "bread and butter" tape, the TDK SA-X, of which I have an enormous supply, and a Denon HD6 100 minute tape.
On the Denon I recorded New Order's "Get Ready" on one side, and Death Cab for Cutie's "Transatlanticism" on the other (the latter one of her favorites, the former one of mine). Both albums fit perfectly at just under 50 minutes each. On the SA-X I recorded a band from the early nineties called Lush, the album is called "Split." They're sort of an off-shoot of the shoegazer genre but not quite that sound.
Without getting into great detail, I used Cardas Myrtlewood blocks and Herbie's "Tenderfoot" footers under the Naim, and just the blocks under the Nak. Interconnects were my own models, all silver conductors.
It's worth noting that "Transatlanticism" is not a hi-fi recording by any means, so it sounded good, but it couldn't sound better than that. New Order's "Get Ready" fared much better, with powerful, well-controlled bass, a ton of detail, and proper tonality that actually made parts of the album sound different after all these years! The Lush album was even better. We've listened to the CD in her car plenty of times in the past, but this was a different experience altogether. Similar to how the New Order album turned out, just so much more alive than what we normally heard.
How does this make any sense? How could a cassette that's a copy of a CD sound better than the CD itself? It should be impossible. The answer, I'm sure, is the source CD player used, which was of course the Naim. The Nak BX-1 created a recording faithful enough to what the Naim gave it that we were treated to an incredible listening experience, this in a car where we normally listen to what's probably a low-level quality CD changer.
Thank you, if you managed to read all of that.
Cool Story!