What is a retired Englishman doing in the Dutch countryside? Well, listening to beautiful music for example.

Last Thursday I visited Geoff P to meet, listen to music and talk Hi-Fi. And very nice it was. Geoff lives in a fairly small house in the south of the Netherlands. The front part of the L shaped living room is filled with his big hi-fi system. The large Kharma speakers dominantly taking their space are impossible to overlook: The 500 amp right in the middle. The rest is also top flight 500 series Naim kit Fraimed up on the side. On the top a beautiful looking Michel Orbe turntable. It's immediately obvious that Geoff has put a lot of attention to detail in the setup regarding cable routing, mains etc. The listening position is only some 2,5 meters from the speakers and they are quite close to each other too given their size. To be honest my first thought was that his system was way too big for the small-ish room.

This idea disappeared as quickly as it came when the first tunes started playing. The system works very well in the small room. The acoustics are pleasant, well damped with very little reflections. A big difference with my own bathroom type acoustics... I find it very difficult to put a listening experience and musical impressions into the right words but I'll have a go. The sound is VERY powerful, tight and controlled. The 500 seems to have an iron grip on the Kharmas. Musicians are portrayed with excellent separation and resolution. It always takes me a few tracks to listen into the sound of a system. This got a lot easier when Geoff got the first vinyl spinning. The CDP is a CDS3 with a 555 PS and a Hi-line so not exactly entry level CD replay but right from the first notes it was so obvious that the Michel sounded a lot better. Much more engaging, more 'real flesh'n blood' and better flowing. Kind of being part of the music versus being a close observer. We played a number of tracks we had both on CD and vinyl (Ry Cooder, Diana Schuur, Peter Gabriel, Steely Dan) and the outcome was consistent. The CDP didn't stand a chance against the turntable. Make no mistake, the CDS3 sounded great on its own! Just not as good as the turntable. Very impressive.

But the biggest virtue and trump card of Geoff's system is the sheer power and scale it can play music with. I'm not gonna niggle about clean heights, deep bass, transparent mids and things like that 'cos it's all there. In spades...
But some music simply needs to be played loud to come alive and really enjoy it. Pink Floyd is a good example of this. Another is one of my favourite tracks called 'Stimela' by Hugh Masekela from the album 'Hope'. A 10 minute piece about the coal trains from Johannesburg and the workers in the mines. We played it at near eardrum shattering level and I don't think I've heard it like this before. A near life performance. Effortless and as solid as a coal train...

After his full throttle end of the evening our ears were red, saturated and started to hang so we threw in the towel. During my 150KM drive home I didn't even think about putting radio the on.

Thank you for a very nice afternoon and evening and a great listening experience Geoff !








Richard.

Nice write up Richard, Im sure you have a good time at Geoffs, but where is the Superline?

Julian

Great review, and wonderful pics of the system.

Geoff, you have a beautiful set-up and it seems you have taken evey consideration and option for acquiring the best sound out of your system, not to mention being a good host to a fellow Naimer.

Well done....

rega1

Richard...thank you for the kind words it was nice to meet and I am looking forward to taking you up on your invite to hear you Guaneri's.

quote:

Originally posted by Julian H:

Nice write up Richard, Im sure you have a good time at Geoffs, but where is the Superline?

Julian

Ah well ....when you start with a non-prefix TT you are into standalone phono stages...and there are some remarkably good ones out there that can stand against a superline .....oops sacrilege!!

Rega 1...Thanks. It is very enjoyable sharing system sounds it helps us all establish a yardstick for our own setups and more importantly is excellent social fun sharing views and music....a pat on the back for the forum format.

regards
Geoff

Yup, geoff's rig sure is nice, and with a little bit of uniqueness of not being 'all' naim to boot...

quote:

.....oops sacrilege!!

Don't worry about that pal; I'm in two minds myself.....

J

Not having a turntable myself, listening to such a good one is not all good news...


Seriously, there's nothing wrong with a good CDP. They can play excellent involving music too. Listening to my CDX/Hi-line/NBS back home reconfirmed this very convincingly. Just don't put a major league vinyl spinner like this Mitchel Orbe in the same room...

Richard

Thanks for the great report and the great picturers Richard

Hi Geoff,

You seem to be permanently tweaking and experiencing new tricks, something I never do, I don't miss it, but I admit it must be fun doing
You should post all the various pics of all the different tweaks you did since the begining, on a special thread

Did you have a special order of long 4 pins snaics to connect your amp to the 552PS? what's the lengh btw? Are they Naim cables or Chord maybe??

I can see than you took apart the bases of your 2 Fraims to build a 3rd Fraim stand for the 500/500PS, smart! I take on the 2 main Fraim stands sound as good with no base!

Regards,
Edouard

Geoff's system always looks immaculate and I know for myself how much close attention he pays to set-up.

Would be interested to know, as is Edouard above, about the interconnects between your 552 and 500 - are they Chord cables? I take it Naim wouldn't entertain the idea of making cables of such a length between preamp and power amp...!

Hi Geoff,

I'm also interested to find out more about the din/xlr cables you're using. Having spent a few weeks experimenting with Indigos I'm looking for an alternative to Naim standard cables. I can't wait for Naim to release their din/xlr hiline cable for us 300 & 500 users.

Thanks
Graham

quote:

I can't wait for Naim to release their din/xlr hiline cable for us 300 & 500 users.

There are some poorer people who would like to try them too!

Sorry Howard, that did sound a bit pretentious.

I've just upgraded from 300 to 500 and enjoying the ride

quote:

I'm also interested to find out more about the din/xlr cables you're using. Having spent a few weeks experimenting with Indigos I'm looking for an alternative to Naim standard cables. I can't wait for Naim to release their din/xlr hiline cable for us 300 & 500 users.

it won't be long, hopefully.

Peter (Cymbiosis), any thoughts on if Naim are looking at this?

As far as I know it is currently work in progress. Just no sign of an end date as yet....

Graham
You have to come round here asap and hear the new bits and bobs in action. Pity is too shaming to mention here!

quote:

I can see than you took apart the bases of your 2 Fraims to build a 3rd Fraim stand for the 500/500PS, smart! I take on the 2 main Fraim stands sound as good with no base!

Edouard..that was only to 'trial' the change. I bought some extra Fraim and it ended up looking like this:



and this:



I definitely heard an improvement when I was able to return the system Fraim to the standard double base configuration. I would not recommend a single base layer on a permanent basis as it does degrade the sound quite a bit.

regards
Geoff

OK

A bit about my somewhat unusual layout.

I wanted to try out.... again, some Kharma and some Chord Signature speaker cables that I have. Both sets are only about 3 meters long and both are expensive so I was not going to buy additional 7-8 meter lengths of these highly expensive cables and waste what I already have just to try them out.

This meant 'remoting' the 500 between the speakers. I talked with Naim and they confirmed that they do NOT recommend it because of the long runs of signal interconnects needed....and understandably do NOT therefore supply long versions of the DIN to XLR's between the 552 and the 500.

However....since there was no specific electrical reason against it I decide to try it anyrate and purchased a pair of 7 meter long DIN- XLR's from Flashback at not much cost. Coincidentally a week or so later I visited a new Naim dealer who has opened up near me and low and behold he had 'remoted' his 300 in his demo system using his own make besopke DIN - XLR's which are Silver with a bit of added Gold so not cheap.

The upshot was he loaned me his long cables and I tried them. The result was excellent IMO so I had a pair made that were exactly the right length ( with a safety margin for slight movements ) at 6.5 meters each. So.. I was then able to swap speaker cables and satisfy my original purpose.

Ironically after carefull back and forth listening tests over several weeks I ended up back using NACA5 (several people will no doubt say 'I told you so'). The musical result was appealing to me so I decided to stick with the 'remote' configuration as you see it.

regards
Geoff

Geoff, you have a beautiful system, but why are you using Toblerone to support your speaker cable ?

Toblerone pure as milk sounds less good.

quote:

Originally posted by Geoff P:
This meant 'remoting' the 500 between the speakers. I talked with Naim and they confirmed that they do NOT recommend it because of the long runs of signal interconnects needed....and understandably do NOT therefore supply long versions of the DIN to XLR's between the 552 and the 500.

Geoff - great looking system! Your comments about the cables are interesting as I have (of necessity) 6.5 metres of cable running from the 552 to my active ATCs, and therefore susceptible to interference etc, especially as the 552 output is unbalanced . I've thought of experimenting with different cable, but can you throw more light on what your dealer was using? I got some from Audiosource in Glasgow, and they seem to do the job, but hey, we like to tinker don't we?
Cheers
John