Royd Seven.

[Andrew]

I have and it worked very well. I like the mk1 planet, but I just love the older Naim players. I've never owned a CDS but heard it a couple of times and would've bought it if I could afford it. The CDI is a belter though and I've had a few. Regretted selling every one of them. The later model with the cDM9 pro mech was the best of all, but they stand head and shoulders above evetything else I've had. I do tend to like the TDA1541 players though.

[southall-1998]

The Naim I was using was the new CD5si. It is a pretty good sounding machine, not the most relaxed of CD Players but very punchy and musical. Its a little like a roller coaster.

The CDI still lives in my ''want list''

S.

[Andrew]

I'm glad to hear the later Naims have a bit of character. When I had a CDI, my local dealer offered me a CD5x for a week, claiming it would "blow away" the CDI. It was so dull and lacklustre,I just wanted to turn the thing off. It would never offend anyone, but it was hard to believe both players came from the same company. It also weighed less than half the weight of the CDI and was poorly built in comparison. It was something like £1599 at the time, so not cheap. I returned it to the dealer the very next day and it's put me off experimenting with later Naims ever since. It always puzzles me when you see life-long Naim die-hards because the products after Julian Vereker passed on just don't sound similar in any way to me.

[_D_S_J_R_]

Can anyone shed some light on this please?

http://www.boxsoft.net/sites/royd/main.htm

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Can anyone shed some light on this please?

http://www.boxsoft.net/sites/royd/main.htm

Old dead website from the Canadian distributor.

Phonography bought all spares and what tooling was left and were going to carry on manufacture as they promised Joe. BUT typical retailer it was all bullshit they weren't capable of it. So just sold spares until they ran out.

[_D_S_J_R_]

Naim CDI was great in its day, but its day was nearly twenty years ago and you can buy similar sound for very little now IMO. Just take the brand-cachet away and I doubt you'd be disappointed with good machines around £500 (if any are still being made...). Hell, Fiio make some great sounding DACs for well under a ton IMO.

[Andrew]

I don't buy into the belief CD payers have got better. In fact, my ears tell me they have got worse. I'd love to find something better for cheap, but it hasn't happened so far.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Well I think this is proved with the Sony and Techy I have spent the last few days comparing. The ONLY thing I have heard comparable is not a CD player but my old TFS music computer. I think the TES was as good but impossible to compare now, and memory can't be certain after 20 years.

[southall-1998]

Naim CDI was great in its day, but its day was nearly twenty years ago and you can buy similar sound for very little now IMO. Just take the brand-cachet away and I doubt you'd be disappointed with good machines around £500 (if any are still being made...). Hell, Fiio make some great sounding DACs for well under a ton IMO.

Oi, stop showing off

S.

[Oldpinkman]

I don't buy into the belief CD payers have got better. In fact, my ears tell me they have got worse. I'd love to find something better for cheap, but it hasn't happened so far.

Not sure about expecting anything cheap, but I'd wholeheartedly support this admonishment that players haven't got better. I am not claiming to have scoured the market and tried every machine. But I assumed, that by the time you have a circuit figured, it goes on a chip, and becomes tuppence a dozen, and yesterdays "amazing frontiers of technology" becomes todays £25 walkman technology. So I was really , really surprised by my gentle drift back into HiFi.

I listened to modern dacs auditioning headphones at 7oaks Hifi. Actually, I used them as a convenient way not to home audition on my equipment. And whilst I roped in a few, I assumed that Westlakes M-Dac would be heaps better than DaCapo, itself the finest Dac I had heard in my day, and therefore more than good enough for purpose. Of course, I was listening to an unfamiliar Dac on unfamiliar headphones, and subsequently unfamiliar speakers in an unfamiliar room (Kef LS50's). But I was seriously underwhelmed. I had listened to a couple of £1000 cd players in the shop as well - or rather, listened to the headphones using them as the reference source. They were all "nice" enough, but left me very unsatisfied, and I just concluded I had an imagined memory of DaCapo, and had forgotten how good vinyl was.

And then, fully aware of the time-bomb that lurks inside them, I discovered a DaCapo for sale with my favourite 22 bit filter in it, drove to Norfolk to pick it up, and it remains head and shoulders my favourite digital domestic red book experience to date. Now, I stress, no A:B. I haven't heard M-Dac and DaCapo in the same room at the same time on the same system, and of course relatively M-Dac at £500 is the "cheap" design (DaCapo retailed more than 20 years ago for over £1000). But I didn't feel Westlake had moved forward. A real surprise. And a real delight to get an old friend back - working!!