RNLI Evening of music and hifi - £250k Naim setup !

[rigger67]

Anyone going to this tonight ?
https://rnli.org/find-my-nearest/events/2017/february/music-and-hi-fi-evening

I found out about it when I took my Rega speaker in to Audio T a month ago and told a couple of friends and now there's four of us going.
Apparently, it's a quarter of a millions quid's worth, mainly Naim gear ..

Should be interesting plus it's for a good cause :)

[Macca]

Apparently, it's a quarter of a millions quid's worth, mainly Naim gear ..



Must be one of their budget systems then.

I'd go but Hampshire is a bit far.

[Marco]

Hi Paul,

Where in the UK are you? You need to put a geographical area in your profile. "United Kingdom" alone is rather too vague. Cheers! :cool:

Marco.

[rigger67]

Hi Paul,

Where in the UK are you? You need to put a geographical area in your profile. "United Kingdom" alone is rather too vague. Cheers! :cool:

Marco.

Sorry, mate - sorted now :)

[jandl100]

Be interesting to know what you think of it all, Paul -- some pics would be good, too, if that's allowed.

[Marco]

Sorry, mate - sorted now :)

Churz, dude! :cool:

Not too far from Naim HQ then ;)

Marco.

[rigger67]

Yeah, ten miles away to be precise.

No photos, I'm afraid, but I can describe it all.
The evening was for the RNLI as the head of the local section of the charity is a Naim owner and shops at Audio T in Chandlers Ford. He suggested it might be a good idea for a fundraiser, they got in touch with local independent record store, Hundred Records in Romsey, and it grew from there.

The first half of the evening was all vinyl.
The deck was a Michell Gyrodec SE with a silver arm that was neither a Rega derivative nor an SME. I couldn't tell you what it was (or the cart).
Sorry, but if you want speccy details a la Statto you're asking the wrong bloke :)
The amplification was Naim's Statement : £125k for three big boxes, two power- and a pre-amp.
They look like something off the Enterprise and are truly beautiful objects. They're very big but the room was enormous - a high ceilinged function room - and they were dwarfed by the speakers anyway, which were Dynaudio Evidence : another £50k.
All the cables were Chord Company and the speaker runs were white, about an inch thick each and gently twined together. Christ knows how much they cost ..


They played three tracks from a 10" called Davy and Bert (Graham & Jansch), from a 2005 live Edinburgh recording and it sounded beautiful : very spare, lots of space, great on the acoustic guitar, both low and high notes. Very nice indeed.
Then they played Laura Marling's new album, which isn't even out yet. First track was stunning - like a subdued Kate Bush singing over an early 70s Serge Gainsbourg number with great picked electric bass. The next couple of tracks were decent but didn't sound as good - it was bit more of a wall of sound, and less distinct than the live recording overall.
The third album was a new country artist whose name I missed but I'm picking up a copy on green vinyl on Friday - modern alt country that sounded gorgeous with a female vocalist.
This one sounded better, again probably because there were fewer instruments.
I think it was a limitation of the deck overall given its place in terms of budget for the system that meant I was slightly underwhelmed by the overall experience. The choice of music was a bit samey too - some soul or jazz cranked up would've been more dynamic I think. It sounded nice, don't get me wrong, but nowhere near £200k nice.

There was a draw at half-time and one of my mates won a pair of active Dynaudio monitors worth a thousand pounds ! :D

The second half was Naim's streamer playing Hi-Def audio files.
The music chosen was a bit more varied, but not much : Maria Callas, Yello, another live acoustic thing plus two tracks from DSOTM - and you can guess which two - but then the crowd was very much 55-65 year old Top Gear fans.
We were informed by the Dynaudio bloke that the sound system in a Bugati Veron is in fact the same as the Evidence system. He knew his audience !

Then the bugs started to appear ..
To their credit, they tried to play some classical .. and spent five minutes fannying about trying to get Strauss' "Also Sprach .." to stream, but they failed miserably.
Several people got up and left, while everyone else was talking.
They came back to some more pop stuff and it did sound superb - all of the streaming stuff sounded terrific, though also very "hi-fi".
Having said that, the live acoustic thing that I missed the name of sounded best of all and the recording itself was utterly flawless.
They turned it up very loud and you then got some idea of the scope of the system you were listening to. All the limitations of the Gyro had gone for me : different sound, obviously, but the digital simply sounded better on this system and in this room.

Again, they tried to cue something up but couldn't .. whether it was down to the hotel's wifi or something more sinister I don't know, but for a demo of new tech it was poor. Not audio-wise - it was superb in that sense, like I said, but in terms of reliability and user-friendliness I could see a few people shaking their heads.


All in all it was a fun evening and the proceeds went to a worthy cause. I heard some new music on a bonkers stereo that actually made me feel pretty good about my own set-up. Plus my mate was beaming when he left :)

https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5265/5642798664_59822e101f_b.jpg
https://www.oxfordaudio.co.uk/assets/download/4467/statement.jpg
http://www.customelectronicdesign.co.uk/sites/default/files/productimages/dynaudio_evidence_Platinum_black.jpg

[jandl100]

Thanks for the blow-by-blow account. :thumbsup:

Any chance of finding out who "The third album was a new country artist whose name I missed" was?

[Macca]

Thanks for the write-up. Good that they actually played some proper multi-track rock mixes, I did think you were going to come back and say it was all acoustic jazz and girl with guitar. Some of these super high price set ups can't cope with anything that is a bit of a challenge to reproduce hence all the plinky-plonk played at shows.

Bet your mate was well happy with the free speakers.

[rigger67]

Marco, it's funny you asked about him because of all of us, he was perhaps the most skeptical about the event.
He owns significant amounts of Naim gear already but he's vehemently anti-digital, playing almost all his music on an LP12.
He also has a weird relationship with a record dealer who supplies him a personal selection every month or so of stuff he think he'll like, rather like a personal shopper.
I used to do that with customers in a more organic way when I worked in record shops, but this is altogether different and I'm not sure I would want to "find" music that way myself.
Anyway, in the end he was the most blown away by the streaming. The Callas recording was mono and a bit screechy for me but he sat there dumbstruck and immediately said "I need to re-evaluate the way I listen to music" almost to himself rather than any of us ..
As for his speakers, he has to collect them from Audio T but they'll be perfect for a computer or bedroom system.

As for the country album, I did actually scribble it down on a business card and it's Honest Life by Courtney Marie Andrews :

https://cdn.pastemagazine.com/www/articles/2016/09/13/1471869480_front500.jpg


I'll be picking up a vivid green vinyl copy on Friday when I take a trip back to Romsey's Hundred Records :)

[Firebottle]

All the cables were Chord Company and the speaker runs were white, about an inch thick each and gently twined together. Christ knows how much they cost ..

I hope you are all sitting down, and don't have a drink in your hand, or of a nervous disposition, or wear a pacemaker ......................

The cable in question is the ChordMusic speaker cable, using a military dielectric called Taylon.

Price ..................






















£1100 per terminated metre. That's £3300 for a 1.5 metre pair :eek:

Or it could have been Sarum, that is about half that price :doh:

[wee tee cee]

Great write up Paul...giving the country lassie a listen on Spotify just now.

Had a recent experience hearing 58K B&O speakers...wasnt blown away by any matter of means-like you quite chuffed at what I have in my listening room assembled for justifiable money!!!

[walpurgis]

Not so unusually steeply priced for prestige cables. Take a look through the Transparent Audio or Audio Note cables catalogues. Some hair raising costs there too.

[wee tee cee]

I hope you are all sitting down, and don't have a drink in your hand, or of a nervous disposition, or wear a pacemaker ......................

The cable in question is the ChordMusic speaker cable, using a military dielectric called Taylon.

Price ..................






















£1100 per terminated metre. That's £3300 for a 1.5 metre pair :eek:

Or it could have been Sarum, that is about half that price :doh:

Gulp...didnt spill a drop!!!

[rigger67]

These runs were at least 5 or 6m each in length as it was a big room.

I dug out my vinyl copy of DSOTM this afternoon and was pleased how it sounded.
It's funny, but sometimes you need to try something else to realise what you've got already.

I'm only talking about hifi, you realise ;)

[petrat]

Excellent write-up, Paul!

I heard the Naim Statement system at Signals last year, driving some Kudos Titans ... very impressive. Big knobs, too :D