Is a Naim DVD player any better than an Arcam machine. Is my Pioneer 656a better than both. Whilst I have not seen the Naim machine I have seen other machines and its just difficult to tell one machine from the other.....So why spend all that money. Apparently Denon have a machine costing £250 with HDMI. I have a 32inch Philips Pixel plus Tv, about 3 years old, and the pictures are simply stunning from the pioneer. Surely we have reached the stage were picutes simply cannot get any better. As for sound, if I want to listen to music I go into the next room and listen to my Naim system. Is is something to do with DACs 10 dac 12 dac and a 15 dac gives you an even better picture. Ill stop now as Ive got a head ache

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Adam Meredith,

You do not seem to have a problem.

The only justification for buying any Naim equipment is if it offers extra performance that seems, to you, to justify the extra cost. We do not expect everyone to feel compelled to buy our products in all situations.

Should you shell out on a big plasma or projector you would find the differences between players more apparent and investigation of the options would be sensible. Best judgement would be made by experiencing the DVD5 for yourself.

I use one with a pretty modest Sony CRT - I love the picture and really enjoy the sound quality - knowing that there is more in store if I get my planned projector (as I don't watch television).

Although I haven't got a naim dvd player (perhaps one day), I do think the Linn Classik Movie System I have, is considerably better than the Arcam players I auditioned when I bought it.

I have seen and heard the naim DVD and I think it is a step up from my Linn. However, I tend to listen to the CDX2/nait5i/nSats far more than I watch DVDs - so I'm more likely to build on my music system at the moment.

I think all you can do is trial the naim player and then see if it gives a better picture and more enjoyable sound. I think sound is important to me, as I like to hear the dialogue clearly.

quote:

Surely we have reached the stage were picutes simply cannot get any better.

The polite answer to that is, no - we have not.
If you would care to do as Adam suggests & get yourself a good demo the difference is (at least it was to me and a fair few others that I know & read about) very apparent. You presumably had a demo for your existing Naim system, why not do the same for the visual side of things?

Adam. So you got rid of the old black & white PYE in the end then? It'll be HDMI 60" for you then.. or that 10k sim & a 6'screen!!

quote:

Originally posted by Steve2701:
Adam. So you got rid of the old black & white PYE in the end then? It'll be HDMI 60" for you then.. or that 10k sim & a 6'screen!!

I did chat with the guys from SIM at the Glasgow Show. Even at friendly discount everything worth having seems to cost way more than I can be bothered to spend.

I inherited Richard's cast off Sony ? 28" - big bloody box, screws up 2 channel and is harder to get upstairs than a drunken hippo. Don't ask.

how many drunken hippo,s have you tried to get upstairs then
regards neil

Not using your stereo system for film watching means you are missing out on a treat as far as sound quality is concerned. Even using the old Yamaha DSP-E800 (discontinued) for a simple 4.1 set-up your system will sound better than most (if not all) Japanese 5-channel AV receivers.
Would you want to listen to music on an AV receiver? No? Then why would you want to limit the sound quality on a film?

I was considering the Arcam FMJ 27A until I saw and heard the Naim DVD5.

I spent some time watching and listening to DVD's and CD's on both units. I personally found the DVD5 to be undoubtedly superior to the Arcam both in picture and sound quality.

Every DVD, CD and DVD-A I play on the DVD5 the more convinced I am of the superiority of this unit. I know beyond a doubt I made the right choice. The DVD5 is a fantastic piece of equipment!

Until Blu-ray (or HD-DVD) becomes the new standard the Naim DVD5 it will not be replaced for playing movies and will continue to play my DVD's and DVD-A's for many years to come.

Interesting what you say about the DVD5 vrs the 27a.

I have exactly that dilema.

My 27a is fantastic, but going up to a DVD5 is hard to justify cost wise. At least to the wife anyway.

Can you expand on your experience at all please as it'd help me in deciding to demo or not. If I demo I'll probably want it , so I need to be sure. So easy to spend money.

The DVD5 is better than the current FMJ DV29 and that is appreciably better than the DV27A before it. However, in answer to tpm45, pictures can get substantially better than the ones we see nowadays. First of all, DVD is already old hat in one respect in that it has quite low resolution (400 lines or so). HDTV is a substantial improvement over standard TV. HDTV is defined as a minimum of 720p (progressive) or 1080i images. This isn't particularly stunning and people are already talking about 1080p and higher. As we raise these resolutions, there are immediate and palpable improvements to the nature of the pictures, even with smaller screens (say 26" or larger) since they give much truer form to objects in the screen. For example, watching football is much more engaging since players' expressions are still observable on wide distance shots with HDTV. It makes for a much more believable and engaging experience.

The other thing that all displays (and standard DVD) suffer from is a severely restricted colour range. All commercially available displays have significant limitations in the reproduction of colour by comparison to what we can see. They're particularly bad at deep red and not particularly good at the yellow spectrum. Truly red things often appear as slightly orange and yellows are often a bit washed out. If you ever look in a magazine review of a projector or display, you'll see a diagram with an ellipsoidplane of colours varying through red, green and blue. Superimposed on this you'll see one or two triangular figures. The colour plane is what we can see as humans. The triangles represent the achieved scope of the display, and the standard that is defined for displays. The triangles are well within the plane meaning there's a lot further we can go yet with primary displays - of any size.

quote:

The other thing that all displays (and standard DVD) suffer from is a severely restricted colour range.

...not in the DVD-Video standard per se, but in the encoding at the authoring stage IN SOME releases. Often, this is mistakenly done under the assumption of compatibility with older NTSC-setup televisions (over here, anyway).

Gamut? Well, until you can harness the broad-bandwidth light energy of a distant star...!

Hmmm, I was under the impression it was standard DVD too. Well, that's good news since it means that when the displays get better we should (generally) get better colour resolution.

General: I've done the 27a -> DVD5 "leap", and had cost wobbles along the way too, when deciding. However, they all vanished as soon as the player was plugged in: both picture and sound are stunning. The DVD5 with AV2 is a formidable combination. But that's just my opinion :-) I think J.N. had a Fortnum and Mason quote in a post somewhere: "The quality will be enjoyed, long after the price is forgotten".

Will that quote prevent my head from being staved in by an impressed wife?

I know really that you are right of course, (nothing like preconceived ideas before a demo), and a DVD5 does have to go on my shopping list.

But at least I have someone to blame now.