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AG 8/4/08

A new update to Freeway 5 Pro (the software with which this site is created) has led me to start a minor flash makeover and tidy-up. Re-reading old pages has brought home the down-side of our open and honest (but enthusiastic) twaddle. The words “the trouble is that you believe you’re own bullshit”, are ringing in my ears. Hell, this is not exactly joined-up stuff, is it?!

I guess the core of my angst lies in the descriptions of cables. Magazine reviewers rarely seem to concern themselves with this. By the time they contradict themselves, the previous stories have already become kitchen roll. The idea behind this site was to offer a gradually increasing database of information. I have been reluctant to revise earlier stuff because it seems better to offer an honest appraisal and let it stand. Trouble is that music systems are precisely that : systems. All the elements are interdependent and judgements change because of that.

In this business, any skills that we have are are effectively being sold with any system purchase that you make. Most dealers keep their cards closer to their chests. On the face of it, by placing so much of our thinking in the public domain, we are undermining a commercial advantage. Thankfully, the response that we get to the site seems to show that customers are also attracted by the enthusiasm (madness?) and we have met quite a few people who have made very substantial journeys to see us. Presumably, this was to find out if we are quite as peculiar as the web-site implies.

With the new arrival of Rega to our small range of interdependent products, we have quite a lot more learning to do. Certainly the initial listening session was compelling enough to get us to invest some cash in their products. Now to find out if any mixed systems makes sense.

AG 18/1/08

Quite a lot has been happening but I’ve been keeping rather quiet!

Surprises? Those little Arcam Muso speakers are really amazing. Not high end but far better than we have any right to expect at the size / price level. If they were priced at £600 and came from some enigmatic Scandinavian or maybe Swiss manufacturer they would be a cult item.

Recent high spots during demos (in no particular order) have been:

1)Placing Focal Electra 1007 be on Partington Dreadnought Broadside stands. Why oh why did we not do this sooner!? Such an uplift in quality for less cost than the official stand. A customer tried some expensive granite stands instead and reported the sound quality to be disastrous, and we have had plenty a bad results with other known-to-be-good stands such as Something Solid, so this is definitely a special combination, and one that looks good too.

2)Trying Siltech cables (at last). A recent experiment with Naim CD5X / NAC122X / NAP150X with the Electra 1007 be gave some intriguing results, using NAC-A5 as the reference point. The London cable (about £55/m) sounded worse that the reference, the Paris (£65/m) very impressive with no loss of timing but better resolution, scale and refinement and The New York (£95/m) was rather less successful. We simply had to give the £200/m LS88 a go and this was bloody amazing. Real ‘jaw-hit-the-floor’ stuff. More playing is needed and we’ll have some of our own very soon!

3) Focal have launched a UK-only version of the chorus 816v and the rep brought a pair round for a dem. The 816WSE has the sandwich cone from the Electra series and costs £1399. It looks outwardly identical to the standard version and sounds significantly more accomplished. Much better, in fact, than the £1200 826V. Only the 816 will get this treatment and it is, I gather, UK only.

With more turntables than we can shake a stick at from Nottingham, Avid, the Funked Linn plus dear old Project, it is typical that we would run into a slightly quiet period of interest in the black art. We have a serious chunk of the Lyra and Dynavector cartridge range on dem too, so we are becoming rather knowledgeable!

AG 16/11/07

Oh dear. Big gap again. Guess we've been busy! An email reading "do you post on your "Signals" blog ?" kind of made me look. Thanks David!

The Avid story has moved on, as the front page rather explains. The funked up Linn has been interesting too, actually rather good but with far more 'hands-on' in the setting of the power supply than we expected. Get the motor running right and it is very good. Still essentially a Linn, but one with more focus, scale and resolution than the one we started with. The Nottinghams are chalk to the Linn's cheese. Sorry, couldn't resist. Truth is, we are still really smitten with what the NAS decks do and exposure to the Avid products has done nothing to dampen our enthusiasm. Somehow, the Avids bring something else to the table. So many flavours, so little time.

We are seriously taken with the Dynavector cartridges and the (just) sub two grand Te K . . . oh, call it TKR is bloody brilliant. Yes it topples the Lyra Skala but by far more on Linns and Avids than on Nottinghams which indicates that either could be best on other platforms. Hearing some Shahinian Obelisks at a customer's home has led to another brand acquisition, although they do not seem quite as compelling in our room as his. The cheaper Compass seems to be a better match to Signals Towers.

I have been toiling on the annual newsletter too. It is committed to PDF and is underway at the printers. Of course I'm now spotting all the errors. We'll stick a PDF on the web site once the paper ones are in the post.

AG 26/9/07

Months (and months) ago I commented that we'd really rather like to get the Naim Aro onto the Nottingham Dais. Well, the Aro arrived for the Funk Firm project (front page) and we just had to try. As you can see, it is well and truly sorted! The boxes are the arm rest. For a more elegant solution, it would seem that a Naim Slide from Avid will resolve the issue - as well as lead to the inevitable "wanna try our decks" kind of conversation. In the meantime the lashed up Aro sounds utterly magnificent on the Dais. Why did we procrastinate for so long??

AG 25/8/07

The last few months have seen us getting to grips with the Naim 552 pre-amp and 500 power amp. On top of that, we have found ourselves increasingly attached to the SL2 loudspeakers which have found quite a few happy buyers. One aspect of the Naim upgrade ladder has been ignored. Namely, active operation. At last we have had the request that was needed to kick start us into finding more.

A customer who already has the full 555/552/500 system with passive SL2 loudspeakers wanted to find out what would happen if he went active with 2 x 500 power amps. The answer is here.

From our perspective we have not (quite, yet perhaps maybe) the wherewithal to use two 500's and wondered how it would mix with a NAP 300. Armed with our new SNAXO 242 powered by the trusty Supercap power supply we set up our own active system. We have only just received a new NAP 300, so the one pressed into service is not yet run in. Naim's guidance that the best amp should drive the treble just felt silly. I mean, here is this thirteen grand power amp, the most powerful that Naim have ever produced, and we are going to use it to drive tweeters . . . So we started with the 500 on bass / mid duties and the far from budget NAP 300 on the tweeters. In truth it is not all that far away from the magical effect of doubling up 500s. But not quite.

Swapping to the suggested best practice of giving the bass / mid to the NAP300 proved that (A) the run in 500 is far better at treble than the 300 and less usefully that (B) the new 300 is far less good at bass / mid than the 500. For now, the best result (and it is way ahead of a single 500) is with the 300 on tweeter duties. In a week or two we can revisit. In the meantime if the active principal has made you wonder, then we are happy to demonstrate it as it stands or with rather less exalted power amps.

AG 11/8/07

Oops, it's been a while since the last entry. We've been surprisingly busy I'm afraid. Quite a bit of running around too. Today we've had a quiet Saturday afternoon and have had a chance to do some Supernait comparisons.

Taking our cue from the casework size and styling, we set it up on some fraim beside a CDX2 (with Hi-line) and a NAC202/NAP200. Using Kudos C10 stand mounts, C2 floor-standers, Focal 806 stand mounts and 826 floor-standers we have established that the SN will drive speakers (C10) with which the 122/150 is, erm, sub-optimal. We have confirmed our suspicions that the SN has a "nice' filter in it too. Compared to a bare bones 200/202, the SN offers reduced resolution and dynamics but is a whole lot easier, more compelling, even, to listen too. Mind you, add the PSC to the 200/202 and it leaps significantly (and, by now, £1000) ahead of the SN. The 200 might have fewer watts on paper but it does come over as more gutsy and transparent.

Running the SN into the 200 power gives an excellent upgrade but the 202 / psc is still more "pure". Adding the Hi-Cap to the SN seemed to do slightly more than the 200 power amp achieved (nothing to stop you doing both) but it all feels a little like it's missing the point. The SN is a lovely, rounded, product that can form part of an upgrade path if you subsequently decide to take it.

There is a definite similarity to the Nait 5i, but with greater weight and refinement. There remains a slight softness to the bass in comparison to the classic Naim power amplifier style. It is not wooly and it's not veiled but there is a sense of soft focus that seems to let musical textures through but keep the harsh stuff out. You could prefer it to the full on Naim character.

The fact that there is an excellent DAC in the amp is potentially of interest to hard disk music storage users. We connected a Sonos ZP80 via phono leads, optical digital and coaxial digital. We got the best results from Coaxial digital and, on AIFF files it was not a million miles away from the same disc played on the CDX2. Somehow the CD player version was more compelling but it was far from night and day. Anyway, that's our tenpenneth.

AG 23/05/07

OK first off, we finally have the reworked STAX 006 and 007 energisers back from Symmetry and, thank goodness, we are truly impressed. These really make sense of the earspeaker's abilities and (YIPPEE) offer real life, colour, dynamics and proper bass quality. Even Naimies will like them now! Package prices are being worked out and a before / after magazine review is planned. Existing owners can have their energisers upgraded and there is no doubt in my mind that this is extremely worthwhile. The only down-side is that they run a little hotter - but they warm up fairly quickly too, so need not be left running all the time.

AG 9/05/07

Yup. Late again, running true to the 'intermittent' promise. Can't believe the number of people reminding me that the blog is running late. So that's five readers then.

Interesting developments? Don't be silly. For those who can stand it, I've put together a page about Naim and cables. Otherwise, the last few weeks have offered a couple of mildly devastating discoveries:

First was hearing a nine year old Stax headphone package (the old signature system with the valve T1 energiser). Wow, so that's why I always liked them. Quite honestly, placing this against a new 4040 package, it was far and away the better product. The newer earspeakers themselves are fine, but the energiser has most certainly lost it's way in comparison. Raising this with the importer brought about an astonishing revelation : not only had he 'twigged' that there was a problem but he was very much on the case. Seems a UK - only (and UK modified) option is just around the corner. This will include better quality valves and far more accurate setting of the bias, amongst some other little tweaks. Our 006 and 007 energiser units have gone off for modification, so more news could follow.

Or an embarrassed silence, of course.

When you look at the current prices versus that charged about ten years ago, the proposed £200 uplift in price (for the 006) will still make this system cheaper in real terms than it was. The Omega system's 007 energiser will be upgraded too, but I am not sure of the price differential. In fairness, the 007 still showed some advantages over the T1. The revised 007 should offer a clean pair of heels. We hope.

The other piece of devastation was doing a home demonstration of the Naim CD555 to a Naim CDS3 user who has an active ATC system comprising the ATC SCA2 preamplifier and SCM100 active speakers all linked together with high end Nordost cables. My word, that sounded good! Utterly and unequivocally improved by the CD555. And massively MASSIVELY better than the last SCA2 / SCM50 combo that we had prior to becoming Naimies. It is rather extraordinary, but the sound of system we are aiming towards has simply not changed all that much over the years. It's just the brands that we use to get there. At the risk of offending people, I'll leave the matter there!

Another piece of strangeness has been a recent cartridge demonstration. The Dynavector 17D3 is much loved and highly regarded yet, in the Nima arm on the Nottingham decks, it sounds rather less than spectacular, significantly bettered by the Lyra Dorian at £100 less and Argo i at £100 more. The customer in question has a Linn Sondek with the same arm. Result? With the Sondek, the 17D3 actually bettered the Dorian. We had this kind of cartridge / deck happen before with the tone-arms being the same, Michell Orbe vs SM10, both using SME 309 arms. In that case the Ortofon Kontrapunkt B suited the Michell yet sounded vile on the SME. Still makes me wonder why...! 'Nuff rambling?

AG 10/4/07

Can it really be a month since the last entry? We've actually been quite busy, sometimes even selling stuff (thanks!), so the last few weeks have been consigned to the haze of my failing memory. Mind you, wasting hours dreaming up the April Fool "silly" does not quite cut it as proper work.

New developments? Well, we have taken on Dynavector cartridges and the (stunning) P75 phono stage. More pages of blurb to be written. Since we have now amalgamated the AV products into these hallowed pages (click on 'av, multi-room etc' on the signals menu to reach them), I might as well give the Arcam DV 139 a plug. We have not really done a lot to try out its music CD / SACD abilities, but it sure a hell makes a terrific job with cinema. It's particularly impressive if you use its scaling to match with the actual (native) resolutions of HD ready displays, but even our trusty 576 line Runco projector is impressed. Jeepers I might just be losing it, with observations like that. . . In fact the cinema system is sounding marvellous with Naim n-sats / n-sub coupled to an Arcam AVP 700 / P 1000 combo. It's a blend of clear, open and agile with a rather fine cinematic feel. Hard to explain, but there has been a rare compulsion to play films.

With the demise of Castle and now, we hear, M+K, we have been looking for some pretty but 'proper' skinny loudspeakers. Revisiting a brand I tried about ten years ago has proved interesting. Initial listening is favourable, so hopefully we'll have something pretty and capable to sell pretty soon. We'll have some interesting Stax news very soon. So watch this space.

In the meantime we now have our online shop up and running (buy something, someone, please!!) and Andy is adding items to it all the time. I'm even spending time (albeit mainly evenings) re-styling the main site. Same old content, of course. Just a fresh face. Trust me, everyone else will be fooled, so say nothing - OK?

AG 12/3/07

As a sort of postscript to the entry for 2/3/07, we have had an interesting home demo with Electra 1037s (Naim SL2, Electra 1027s and Kudos C10s as well). We used a Naim NAP 300 driven from an old NAC 52 and the room is far larger than ours. The 1037s actually worked surprisingly well but required a lot of room around them (more than was acceptable) to avoid them becoming overblown. My comments below about them seeming underpowered with the NAP300 should be modified to "less controlled" In our relatively modestly sized space it was all just too much whereas the NAP500 pulls them into shape. There, got that off my chest.

The home demo was rather illuminating. We had tried our own demonstration SL2 previously, with some rather unexciting results. The second visit involved a replacement pair (our own ones are being investigated / repaired by Naim) and some structural changes to the floor but gave us real insight into just how good the SL2s can sound. In fact the customer has ended up going for a NAP500 to drive them.

Yet again, there is a thread running on the naim forum if anyone wants to read the tale.

AG 2/3/07

Focal Electra 1037e loudspeakers arrived yesterday. They are a run-in loan pair, so judgement can be immediate. Plonking them on the end of the Naim reference system (555/552/500), was an instant 'wow'. A bigger, more vibrant sound than the smaller 1027s on the same system. Image depth, width and solidly is substantially 'up', and the bass quality / extension too. The timing is extremely impressive and the agility quite startling. And the headroom is scary! There is so little wrong that we really are pinching ourselves.

Get the feeling that there is a downside coming?

Yup. Swap the NAP 500 for the NAP300 and. . . oh dear. They sound (relatively) soft, far less dynamic and actually slightly underpowered. In all honesty, the 1027 sounds better in this situation than the big 'un. These focals are demanding beasts, all of the electra be series show up the benefits of the 552 pre-amp to a dramatic degree. The need for 'filtering' cables such as Chord Signature goes away because the refinement is in the source in the first place. Records sound amazing!

We could well be interested in having the 1037s to make our 'statement' system, but it is fair to say that any potential buyers will need to have the right electronics to open them up and really let them 'fly'.

AG 28/2/07

Our Naim 552 / 500 combo is bedding in nicely. As predicted by others, the run-in is a bit of a journey, with some quite noticeable changes of direction. The initial nice-but-tame character gave way to a bit-of-a-hooligan and now we are edging towards something more rounded and sophisticated but still able to deliver real wallop on demand. It has really let us see the Focal 1027s in a new light. Crumbs, they have some serious punch. Their touchy nature with cables is dramatically side-lined too. In this context NAC-A 5 sounds best with them, but the differences are far less night and day than they are with the lesser Naim electronics. On our most recent experiment with the 1027s, Nordost Red Dawn actually ran the NAC-A5 quite close, with the Chord Signature some way below. This would be unthinkable with,say, a 252/300 combination. All very odd indeed. We are looking forward to trying the Electra 1037s tomorrow.

We went to the Bristol Show on Saturday 24th. I'll spare you the full report, but we did hear enough to make us feel pretty secure in the products that we are already stocking. As for major new stuff, Naim had the much hyped Supernait on demonstration.

Now I know this sounds a little 'off message' but I'm not sure that I completely got the point of running it with a six pack of expensive two box CD players, the SL2's and the nSub. It actually sounded pretty good, albeit with a bit of bass bloom at certain frequencies - these are difficult rooms. This is a product aimed at a new sector of the market and I guess that Naim were keen to show that it has not lost its purist qualities in the acquisition of convenience features. The trouble is that the nVi and CD5i/x-122-150-nSat-nSub systems sounded excellent and (depending on the music being played) somehow undermined the Supernait, which came with the implicit message that it needed serious ancillaries to sound any good at all.

I have a gut feeling that the Supernait will, in time, develop a useful niche. The real test will be when we get hold of our own demonstration model, in the meantime the chattering forumites are drawing some doubtless incorrect conclusions from its first public airing.

AG 15/2/07

Well, we have finally cracked. Risking financial oblivion, we now have the full Naim Reference system. The CD 555 was here already, so it's welcome to the 552 pre-amp and 500 power. I think that there are a few dealers taking the plunge at the moment so there was an incentive. The deal was "buy our Reference kit and we promise to change the hold music on the Naim switchboard". We now wait with bated breath. Which beats finger-in-ear.

It is all sounding disturbingly good straight from the box but we are led to expect a slightly frustrating run-in period. For now it is making the SL2's sing as never before. We'll probably stick the lovely little Kudos C10s in next.

We had a play the other day with a high end arm lead on the budget Roksan Nima. Now, a £700 (Nordost Tyr) lead in a £350 arm . . . that is strange maths. Mind you the Lyra Skala was in it, so financial matters were already skewed. Truth is that it made an awesome (oops, hate that word, lets run with "dramatic") improvement. And even in a Naim system! We are getting a more down to earth Heimdal lead to see where it takes us.

Oh, and we have also got a pair of the larger Focal 826 speakers. Next up from the £1000 816. Wow, serious stuff, but not suited to the Nait 5i, were it all sounds alright but lifeless. Strangely, given that the output power is very similar, they are excellent with the 122/150. Moving further up the Naim range makes even more sense. They are cleaner through the bass and mid than the already excellent 816 and have more headroom. They are a fair bit taller and a wee bit deeper. Bloody impressive for £1200. Thinking about it, we must stick them on the end of the Full Monty system! Pity there is so much other stuff to do.

AG 27/1/07

Ahhh. Having spent last Saturday demonstrating Kudos speakers to JWM (on the Naim forum, if you can be bothered to look), we are back to normal duties. We have the Lyra Skala back from a loan to a customer (successful, thanks for asking) and it has me reflecting on how under-rated the dear old Nottingham decks are. Read the dreaded Naim Forum and it is either a top flight CD player or a Linn. Maybe a Michell. But if you like a Michell, you will hate the Linn and vice versa.

If slaughtering a top flight CD player (on a decent piece of vinyl) is a pre-requisite, then the Nottinghams are well and truly up there with the best of them. To our ears these are proper, intelligent and considered products with the unfortunate weakness of a 'cottage industry' image. The timing and musicality combines with scale, an honest neutrality and serious resolution. Oh dear, I'm off on one again . .

Just to see, we put the (£1800) Lyra Skala into the £350 Roksan Nima arm on the £3500 Dais. It really does work well. Far, far too well, considering that even the arm cable can be upgraded. Way better than that, um, fishy sounding unipivot and more embarrassing, probably ahead of the Space Arm. We've got to get a Naim Aro onto this deck!

AG 19/1/06

It's been a while! Busy over Christmas, not least in trying to make sense of the effects of cables, both mains and signal.

Following the 'revelation' - see below - over the mains supply, it was evident that we still had some issues to resolve. We have been re-auditioning the Focal Micro Utopias and getting quite good results on the Something Solid XF stands. Our friendly Focal salesman brought in some MusicWorks Reflex mains cable - a distribution block and some mains leads - and the transformation was dramatic. Cleaner and more resolved at all levels and a lot more musical. Trying this same mains distribution system on a Meridian system connected to Electra 1027 bought even greater improvements. The customer absorbed the changes over a week or so and has bought the £500 block (with 1.5m lead) and some of the £200 IEC leads from us. He remains delighted with them.

We have invested in one here and the results seem strangely linked to Focal speakers. It suits the Utopias and Electras but sounds completely wrong (dry, grey, compressed and messy) with Kudos and Naim's own speakers.

Going back to the speaker comparisons, it has been rather intriguing.. The Micro Utopias get along very nicely with Something Solid's XF stand. Yet the Focal Electras (same family, not dissimilar technology) sound dire on them!. The Kudos stand mounts (C1+ C10) sound 'pants' on the XF stand but really work on the Partington Dreadnought. Put the Dreadnought under the Micro Utopia and it sounds truly awful. Jeepers.

And cables? Pah!! The Focal Electras are OK but pretty raw on NAC-A5, pretty good on Chord Epic and rather excellent on Chord Signature. The Utopias reverse this, with NAC-A sounding best to our ears and Chord Epic being the middle choice. To add confusion, Nordost Red Dawn works well (although it's debatable if it is actually any better than NAC-A5 in this context) with the Utopias.

With the Kudos, neither of the Chord Offerings are a good idea and the NAC-A5 wins hands down. Standard mains cables suit 'em too, so these really are 'plug in and play' for a Naim system. Red Dawn actually takes some of life away (after NAC-A5) but is otherwise pretty benign.

Please remember that these are our judgements on Naim electronics in Bucklesham in January. It could well be different for you, particularly if the electronics are different. I am spewing all of this out to convey just how convoluted this is. Cable reviews in magazines are extremely dangerous things!

AG 10/10/06

Now don't judge us too harshly. But . . . . Over the past couple of months, we have found the Focal Electra 1027's to have become increasingly loose and boomy in the bass. It all appeared to stem from them becoming fully run-in and lots of behind-the-scenes discussion with Focal, not to mention panic stricken soul searching, has been taking place. On top of that, whilst our lower end electronics have remained excellent, the high end stuff (including the CD555) just did not seem to be magical enough.

Some experimenting with the mains feed provided the answer: the dedicated ring for our main listening room also loops into the conservatory and a screw in a junction box located in there hard worked itself quite loose - possibly over the intense heat of the summer months. The transformation brought by tightening up this connection (and double checking all the others) was utterly remarkable. And so cheap! Changing the switched outlet (I have always wanted to keep the environment 'normal domestic') for an unswitched Crabtree one was also very significant.

Suddenly, all the levels of system have moved apart from one another I.E. the upgrade path is much more tangible. And that CD555 is now bloody marvellous! Even the budget kit has improved quite noticeably, which all goes to show that a gradual deterioration can slip below radar quite easily.

The 1027 Electras surpass expectation (all over again) and even the slightly maligned ATC's are starting to come on form, although this is probably as much down to good old-fashioned run-in. The SCM19's do offer an honest clarity and surprising scale, although compared to the elegance of the more expensive Focal 1007 stand-mounts, they do come over as a bit 'crunchy'. Still, the burn-in continues.

AG 3/10/06

So now we have the ACT SCM11 and 19s. Both have received "rave" write - ups from the first two magazines to review them. So they are truly brilliant. We have given them a good solid run-in and . . . well, they are available to hear, borrow . . . even buy.

Just in, we have the new Castle Richmond 7i and we have continued to play with the Focal 816Vs. One thing that amazes is that there can be so many versions of the same event from different loudspeakers. The ATC's are definitely more about analysis than fun. Mysteriously, the smaller, cheaper SCM11 actually seems to give a more weighty bass than the SCM19, maybe even more run - in is required. Fit and finish are a clear step up from the previous generation SCM12 - although we retain a soft spot for the old 12's.

The Focals and Castles are certainly more about the digging into the, erm, emotional side of music. Of the two, the Castle Richmond 7's are the more extreme choice - maybe too much for some - with the Focals offering enough insight without risking the 'open window' tendency to allow garbage to fly in. On the other hand, these little tower castles do offer remarkable speed and a very attractive transparency that creeps up on you over time. They are not initially all that impressive, but you cannot help but be pulled in. At least this is how they are shaping up for us.

As for speaker cable compatibility . . . dear old Naim Nac-A5 is actually proving very compatible with both the Focals and the Castles. You don't read that on these pages very often, so what on earth is going on?!

Chord's Epic is also giving very good results . . . phew.

AG 7/9/06

I guess the hi-fi 'season' is now upon us. In the last few days we have received our first demonstration samples of Focal JM Labs excellent new Chorus 800 series loudspeakers and the new, long awaited and, if truth be told long needed NAC 122X pre-amp. As I write this there are new speakers from ATC bouncing around in the back of a TNT truck on their way to us. All are significant products at the 'real world' end of the price spectrum.

The NAC 122X has been warmed through over the past week. It is not even fully run in yet, but we are impressed and enthused enough to want to bring it to your attention. The Chorus speakers preceded the 122X by only a few days and their auditions have been inextricably linked. Indeed a good, really good, floor-standing loudspeaker that works well with the Naim Nait 5i has been on our wish list for some time. At the moment, the favourites are the Naim Ariva and the Neat Motives. We know that in absolute terms you can get more. The mid range purity of the recent Focal Electra be's have impressed (as it does with the Utopia range) but these are all expensive and fairly amplifier thirsty. In fairness, the Nait 5i makes a good job of driving the £2700 (with stands) Electra 1007 stand-mounts, but the £4k 1027 floor-standers need something north of a NAP200 to get them underway. In any case, the prices are out of kilter with the intended electronics.

The New £1000 816V floor-standers were therefore of very real interest. And the priority was to find out what the Nait 5i makes of them. With a CD5X as source, the 5i does indeed work well. All types of music, and I do mean all, are handled extremely well. It is difficult to find fault, the bass is well controlled (although the Arivas probably have the edge here), the mid range resolution speed and lack of muddle is very close to the much more expensive Focals, and the treble is airy, sweet and open. Dynamics are good, textures, imaging, scale. It's all there and yet . . a small amount of the joie de vivre evident in the Arivas and Motives is absent.

it's worth writing this stuff if only to accuse a French product of lacking joie de vivre . . .

Switching from the Nait 5i to the 112X / 150X combo gave the familiar mixed bag of gains and losses, although the extra scale was welcome. . . . and then we had our new 122X to try.

This was an absolute revelation in this context. The greater tonal colour and scale of the 112X but now with increased resolution and a proper sense of momentum, the fun, spirit and interplays that the 5i was struggling to squeeze out of them was now evident. Swapping to the NAP 200 (still using the 122X) was an extremely significant step, with further gains in resolution scale, dynamics and sparkle. In fact, finishing the job off by replacing the 122 with the 202 was the least dramatic (albeit still worthwhile) of the changes.

We have come out of the session with real respect for the 816V. This is a product that can allow operatic voices to 'flower' (impressed with that one!?), that gives midrange textural information that is normally the domain of Harbeths and the better ATC's yet which is happy to play tecno, hip-hop, jazz . . anything. They are subtle but efficient enough to go seriously loud, even with a Nait 5i in tow. They don't clog up, they don't ring or shout and they are even pretty hard to make boom. And, goodness knows, we have rooms that can trigger that off. Even in our fairly bijou, a/v room they work well with bass extension that sounded all but limitless but never overwhelming. For a £1000 speaker that can make sense of expensive electronics we are now prepared to forgive them the synthetic (even if it is of high quality) finish.

That the comparatively modest 122X can act as such a transparent conduit for all this information is impressive. Naim have not been silly, it does not render the NAC 202 redundant but the 122 is certainly better value than its larger sibling. Using the 122 with the NAP 200 was a real revelation, indicating that the pre-amp can punch above its weight. And we have not even tried the flat-cap with it yet!

If you are in the market for audio equipment around these price levels (or even for rather a lot more!) these are products you should hear. For the sake of good order, I should add that we settled on using Chords excellent new 'Epic" loudspeaker cable to make these comparisons. More about this on other pages . . . soon.