Playground for practical listening exercises

[Charlie1]

Yeah, I think there's probably too much vintage Naim DNA coming through for my liking. And to think, you could add NACA5 to this and take it up another level. Maybe the Naim ARO helped dial it back down.

Good timing though.

[Lego]

With the first strum I liked the elas ...ibls ...not my cup of tea

[Lego]

What were Naim playing at .Didn't they realise these speakers were going into your room.
I think the Elas are the best sound you've got so far .Turf the Briks

[beck]

What were Naim playing at .Didn't they realise these speakers were going into your room.
I think the Elas are the best sound you've got so far .Turf the Briks

:-)

[FairPlayMotty]

ELA's for me.

SHM-CD versions of JJ are great!

[Charlie1]

Turf the Briks

What!! :)

I think the ELAs would sound too thin in the garage anyway - the stud plasterboard doesn't give much bass.

[FairPlayMotty]

Charlie1,

If you see any Celestion A3s for sale with busted tweeters go for them. Great speakers and the guys in Maidstone made new tweeters for me when I blew mine. Most people think you can't replace the drivers. Big units though.

[Charlie1]

Thanks FPM. They are quite big and a lot of drive units so not sure the little 13W Nait could cope.

[Spannko]

Great to be transported back to the Old Skool charlie1. Thank goodness speakers have moved on since then!

[u252agz]

We are being spoiled by you Charlie1! :-)

Great music and I find both speakers enjoyable. The ELAs are a bit more forgiving and easy on the ear while the IBLs are more hard on in character.

I agree - except that I find the ELAs - quite a bit more forgiving and enjoyable.

Also enjoying the music with this ‘classic’ system.

[ThomasOK]

Yep, I'm for the ELAs. The Itty Bitty Loudspeaker would drive me batty after a while - it is just too forward and hard sounding in this system. The ELAs might not be quite as informative but they are certainly more fun.

[V.A.MKD]

Track 1
ELAs: https://www.dropbox.com/s/86k4rr8h1do4t ... 1.MOV?dl=0
IBLs: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sbxd5rxmp866l ... 1.MOV?dl=0

Track 2
ELAs: https://www.dropbox.com/s/krea513uxaprr ... 3.MOV?dl=0
IBLs: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pqunut2skr270 ... 0.MOV?dl=0

ELA for me ...
especially on Track 1.
On Track 2 big difference in character of the speakers ... but anyway for ELA.

[beck]

Cd versus vinyl once again.


Links removed.

[Charlie1]

It's great for what it is and on the ELO I thought they were pretty close, although not sure your LP12 recording was quite right on that one - a bit muffled.

The Don Henley track really boogied on the LP12 and fell a bit flat on CD for me.

It's a brilliant acheivement and there seems to be no end to the tweaks you can apply and it's much cheaper than vinyl.

[beck]

It's great for what it is and on the ELO I thought they were pretty close, although not sure your LP12 recording was quite right on that one - a bit muffled.

Inner track makes the sound a little different

The Don Henley track really boogied on the LP12 and fell a bit flat on CD for me.

Damn, back to the drawing board! :-)

[Spannko]

The Beatles sound great on everything!

However, on track two and three the vinyls were quite a bit better than the CD versions.

[beck]

The Beatles sound great on everything!

However, on track two and three the vinyls were quite a bit better than the CD versions.

Yes, to beat vinyl you have to dig out some reel to reel. :-)

Still, cd is now at a level I find enjoyable and can live with quite well.

I think it is fair to say that the cd’s with a good analog master as backbone comes through more full sounding on my system.


Links will be removed. Thank you for listening.

[beck]

Something happened...............

This is how I feel:

Link removed.



More to come........


I went from this good but a little thin sounding setup

Link removed.

to the human sounding setup at the top of this post (feel free to disagree).


The difference is a tiny mint wafer (https://youtu.be/GxRnenQYG7I), sorry tiny piece of felt placed in the cd drawer.

[Whatsmynaim]

It IS better and I can afford pieces of felt. Where exactly in the drawer did you put it, and how do you prevent it from getting into the player and causing problems?

[beck]

It IS better and I can afford pieces of felt. Where exactly in the drawer did you put it, and how do you prevent it from getting into the player and causing problems?

Dealing with “cheap” hifi like me makes me do things that others may not do. I cannot recommend any of the things I do but people can try at their own risk.


Link removed.

At the bottom of the picture you can see the felt held in place by a rubber band (when the full picture is in view). This is while trying it out.

The rubber band influence the performance as well but the aha moment came with the felt.

[Whatsmynaim]

Thanks for the info and wow! That really shouldn't do anything but I know what I heard.

[beck]

Thanks for the info and wow! That really shouldn't do anything but I know what I heard.

No guaranty for performance lift included! :-)

Report back when you have tried it out. If it is universally a good thing to do or only in some cases I do not know.


I have just replaced the rubber band with a tiny amount of blu tack. I think it is even better.

[Whatsmynaim]

I could only try the rubber band and it shortened the decay of notes and made songs seem slower.
Not a success but it was fun trying! I'll give it a second go when I got my hands on some felt and blu tack.
------
Also. There's no shame in dealing with less expensive hifi when one gets such good performance out of it.

[beck]

Which do you prefer?

A) Link removed

B) Link removed

[Spannko]

B 😊