I totally agree that the CD5 is very musical and has brought a rhythm and pace to my system that just wasn't there before. Very involving.

My CD5 is on a Lovan Sovereign AVR rack, and my only "tweak" is a 25lb bag of lead shot on top of the player to weigh it down on the stand.
My understanding of the Naim philosophy toward "tweaks" is analogous to ordering a steak in a fine French restaurant. You are employing the cuisinary expertise of the chef to prepare an excellent dish, and "tweaking" the final product would be an insult to him/her. If you asked for "ketchup" or "A1 sauce", I'm sure the waiter would look at you funny and be a bit offended. Likewise, the audio designers at Naim have prepared a fine product which they have specifically advised the user time and again not to tweak. Buying into the Naim philosophy is to trust that Naim has addressed all the areas of performance and the final product "as is" is all you would need for maximum performance.

However, IT IS your steak, and it is absolutely your liberty to drown it with a huge wad of sauce from Heinz. Just don't expect the whole forum to go running for Symposium Rollerblocks!

I wasa little surprised by your post. Your statement that it is my right or liberty to tweak ifd I please is self evident as far as I am concerned. With respect to isolation ideas based on ball bearings (Symposium Rollerblocks among others), there are 3 other people on this forum of have commented on the positive effects. That is not to say that everyone should, but in the context of my system where I am also using symposium isolation platforms, It made sense to try it and I am only suggesting it. Symposium Audio's approach to isolation is oposite to the low mass/rigid school of isolation. I have found that my equipment (spectral pre and amp , Linn Linto, Linn Lingo, Naim CD 5, High Cap responds very well to sitting on thsi stuff. There is no absolute and all tweaks are system dependent. I wondered what others experiences have been?

The last time I started a post asking about how cables/isolation products affect sound quality in an audio forum, it snowballed into one heck of a debate between those that swear their life that a $2000 power cord made their $1500 CD player or preamp sound like a $5000 one and those that thought a $2000 power cord made the sound WORSE than the generic 3 buck cord. There were a big group supporting both views, so the issue is far from being settled. Through my relatively short experience with hi-end tweaks, I have personally found the improvements to be marginal at best, and if audiophiles knew how much the markup is on cables and tweaks, they would probably be a bit red faced. and
Just think about the logic and economics here. If Naim has the engineering expertise to produce such high quality electronics and speakers, which are not exactly cheap by any standard, either to produce or to buy, why don't they produce all the fancy cables and tweaks to supplement all the other gear they make? They would certainly profit greatly from it. Oh, I suppose the technical background needed to produce great cables and isolation devices is beyond the sophisticated knowledge and talent required to design a CDS2 or NAC52. Or perhaps they are afraid that if someone found out that some Syposium Rollerblocks (just for example) made their CD5 sound as good as a CDS2, they would sabatage the sales of their flagship product?
The average markup on cables and tweaks are several times that of electronics/speakers. If Naim produced a $1000 cable will greatly improve the sound of their $12000 CD player, Naim owners will surely fork over the bucks. If some $500 rubber squash balls placed under audio equipment will greatly improve performance, it would again be very lucrative for Naim to start peddling the stuff. Why don't they do it? Not because they are ignorant about cables and tweaks, but I think it is because they believe it is unethical for them to knowingly overcharge their customers 10 or 100 times on a product that gives no real improvement in sound quality.

I'm probably going to start a flame war here, so I'm just going to run for cover...

quote:

---

I'm probably going to start a flame war here

---

Save yourself the cost of an asbestos suit and buy some CDs instead.

1. You've just repeated what the NANA site states in about three sentences (see Questions and Answers, DIN cables). I suspect there is broad, although not unanimous, agreement among most forum participants on this point.

2. Even at its most juvenile, this forum has a much more civilized discourse than any other internet forum that I've come across (that's why it's the only one I bother to contribute to). Hell, it's even more civilized than the sorry excuse for a political leader's debate that I watched last night on TV (and the night before in French, am I a glutton for punishment or what?)

Cheers,

John Schmidt
"95% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon