Wanted - Naim Nait 5i or Exposure 2010s or similar

[DSJR]

You might not like it in all fairness, but when launched in integrated form and cosmetics aside, it brought back the Quad valve era back with a vengeance. Atmosphere, sweet toned, air and space in abundance and so "musical" in presentation in a way their preamps seemed to lose (the older power amps can "do it" with sympathetic gear connected to them) and without the "sludge" I hear from some later Sugdens. There may just be a touch of gentle compression going on for all I know, but what lovely sounds emanate from one IMO. Not enough inputs and an unfriendly face (IMO) tend to make these bargains, but I still rate them. The 77 pre was another musical device and with a good phono stage (MM/MC) I thought and the power amps, stereo and mono-blocks, were good too and showed again just how far Class B has come with modern devices used..

[osvaldo]

Hi Neil,

I think you are right about that. The Marantz sounds warmer and softer than the Exposure, which is leaner, faster and more hifi.

Incidentally, do you know which part of the frequency spectrum (ie. htz values) are described as bass, upper bass, lower mid, midrange etc.

I was playing around with a spectrum analyser yesterday and got the in-room response below.

I'd like to learn more about this, so any help would be appreciated.





Cheers,

Martin, you spectrum analyser seems not to be able to record the lowest and the highest notes... the motives go as down as 35Hz. I set my subwoofer to stop at 37,5Hz and it sounds good that way, so I believe the rated 35Hz that Neat published on the website.
From your graph, the red is the Marantz right?

[Martinh]

Hi Osvaldo,

Yes, you are right. The measurement was made with the in built microphone on my iPad. This is ok for casual measurements but is not calibrated.

I've now worked out how to connect a decent external mic and should get proper measurements now. For me, this is a bit of fun to try to understand in room acoustics and to back up the findings from my own ears

The red trace is from the Neats with std crossover and the yellow is with a 2.2 ohm resistor in series with the tweeter circuit. Both traces are with the Exposure amp. The idea is to have the option to reduce the tweeter output a bit for low level late night listening. Works well

I've been playing around with the speaker positioning and have it just about right now. The problem I have is that there is a very high bass output node at 100Hz that needs to be damped somehow. If I move the speakers back to get the balance right, I have to be careful not to set the 100hz resonance off, as this dominates the sound. The measurement device will hopefully help me to identify the problem area and fix it.

I think this is a problem with my open plan area, which has the 3 rooms interconnected in an L shape. All good fun

Cheers,

Martin

P.s. are you doing the album club tomorrow?

[DSJR]

ALL domestic listening environments are a severe compromise, and all this faffing around with different makes of £50 phono plugs should be put in perspective (with deppest respect to those that do these sort of comparisons). get the room as right as possible and many of the angst over details tends to dissipate I found. (I know, some of us do this as a natural part of the hobby, so did I once )

In-room measurements made around 2m out will always have a falling treble and any attempt to "correct" this will lead to disaster. The general curve you present is gently falling and this is fine I believe. Anything under 300Hz should be taken with a huge pinch of salt, as reflections will cause issues and the response in the bass will change depending upon where you sit in the room.. One genuine argument for multiple subs (more than two!) is that the room modes are driven better..