Any Digital Impressions of the Caiman yet?

[daveyboy]

Just seen whf will be reviewing the Caiman later this month

[StanleyB]

it's a cocktail of things which it sounds like the Caiman has

A few people have mentioned to me that some parts of their equipment they had set eyes upon for replacement before trying out the Caiman have now been given a new lease of life and a subsequent stay of execution. So the Caiman could put a damper on your other upgrade plans.

[Labarum]

Just listening to

Johannes Brahms - Sonata per pianoforte in fa diesis No.2 Op.2 - II

Not a piece I have heard before - absolutely beautiful. Tears to my eyes.

Listening on

Venice Classic MP3 128
http://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein...ename=playlist.

So not one of the highest bitrates available, nor yet the best Codec.

Brilliant Stan, Brilliant!

[lovejoy]

Hi guys,
I thought I'd share with you a very interesting and enlightening afternoon I spent at a friends house with the Caiman yesterday.

The friend in question has been a big Naim fan for many years and has a pretty serious system consisting of a CDS2 CD player, 52 pre-amp with Supercap and 2x135 power amps driving a pair of Dynaudio Contour 3.3s which are monsters. He'd been intrigued about the whole computer + DAC for playback and streaming audio so I agreed to take my Macbook and Caiman down to hook it up to his system.

I ripped a selection of his CDs to the hard drive (losslessly) and we sat listening for a good while. It sounded pretty stunning, so my friend came up with the idea of doing some A/B comparisons against his CDS2. I was in doubt at first that there could be much of a comparison between a CD player and a DAC costing less than 10% of its value, but oh no...

What transpired was that we'd listen for a couple of minutes to a track on the CDS2, then move to the Caiman - and proceed to play the entire track, not daring to stop it half way through like we did on the Naim. In almost every area, the Caiman did things better. Most notably in the timing department which explains why we spent so long listening to that and so little time to the CDS2. Instrument position was better, focus better, separation better, vocal textures much better. In fact, the whole midband was just cleaner and better defined.

The only area that the CDS2 outperformed the Caiman was in the bass, there was just more presence to it and it went somewhat lower. I found this quite strange as back at home in my system, there are no complaints with bass whatsoever, so I wondered whether there was some impedance matching issue with the Naim pre-amp, which obviously the CDS2 would not suffer from, being another Naim product.

Even so... For a DAC to perform so well against one of Naim's flagship products is quite amazing, and for it to perform so well as the front end to 10K worth of amp and speakers is quite frankly mind blowing.

[Gazjam]

great writeup Rich, pretty impressive I'd say and great to know the Caiman can perform in a revealing system like the Naim surely is.

10K huh?
Guess I wont need to upgrade my source anytime soon?

[chebby]

Having a --> b demo'ed my TC-7520 (LM4562NA) up against a Naim CD5i and CD5X in the recent past (April) I can confidently say that both Naim CDP's were comfortably better. (Yes, lossless files were used.)

Purchase of an £895 CD player (or not) was in the balance - with me being £895 better off if the TC-7520 came near enough in performance - so this was not done light-heartedly. There were a lot of other things I could do with almost £900

It would have also been the 'break off' point where I would have finally decided once-and-for-all whether to continue with traditional CD replay or not.

The result is here to see...



I use both but the DAC serves to play Freeview radio, DVD sound, iTunes downloads and internet radio, BBC iPlayer etc rather than replace a CD player.

I am incredulous that a somewhat more modified TC-7520 than mine (in the shape of a Caiman) could be thought better than a CDS2.

I will be interested to see what happens with the WHF Caiman review and if they have similar findings to 'Lovejoy' and his friend.

Maybe I am going to be able to sell the Naim kit buy a Caiman and have nice wedge of change to enjoy!

[trailer]

I have to agree with Lovejoys findings.

My CD5X/FlatCap has been gathering dust since I got the 7520 Wolfsoned.

Has anyone else got anything like the Monarchy Upsampler/Jitterbuster in the loop at all?

[chebby]

I have to agree with Lovejoys findings.

My CD5X/FlatCap has been gathering dust..

That is a serious bit of kit to be collecting dust with, so why not sell it?

[trailer]

Good question.

There have been rumours of Naim doing an in-house mod for adding a S/PDIF out to the existing players (at a cost no doubt). The new CD5XS and the CDX2S both have these as standard now.

I've been in a bit of a quandry as to which way to go forward. High on the list is to upgrade the 202 to a 282 and P/X the CD.

Are you offering per chance?

[lovejoy]

The Wolfson DAC really does make the Caiman a very different beast to the 7520. Plus of course what sort of digital signal you're feeding it with makes all the difference.

I suspect the What Hi-Fi? review of the Caiman will count for nothing unless:
a. They've suddenly employed people with a clue
b. They've turned into a proper consumer magazine and won't be giving the award to the highest bidder.

Cynical? Me? Never!