Rubbish in, rubbish out. No matter how good the speakers are they can only
reproduce what they get. Rubbish in, rubbish out. Front end is ALWAYS the
most important.

--
John the West Ham fan

"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...

"Derrick Fawsitt" wrote in message
...
Having just got a new pair of Quad 989 ESL speakers due to listening to
so many people say the room and the speakers are the two most important
factors in good Hi Fi, what do I say to a friend of mine who has just
added a Naim CDS 3 player to his Naim equipment and swears by the
difference it has made.
In conclusion, two questions, first of all the importance, (or otherwise)
of the Player in a system and Secondly, what is your opinion of the new
Naim CDS 3 player.
--
Derrick Fawsitt

Whether or not the Naim CD player made a difference does rather depend on
what was there before :-) However, if we assume that whatever was there
before was also a decent quality player, then I doubt if changing to the
Naim would make all that much difference. Every CD player of any
consequence has a flat frequency response, vanishingly low distortion and
low noise, so what else is there? For several years now, A-D converters
have been of such a standard that the differences between them is
vanishingly small.

On the other hand, there is still a very considerable difference between
loudspeakers, none have a flat response or low distortion when compared to
electronics, and their dispersion characteristics can interact more or
less with the room , such that by far the greatest difference to a hi-fi
system will be inchanging the 'speakers. Congratulations on the 'speakers,
BTW, they should sound great provided you can give them plenty of air to
breath, especially behind.

Regarding your specific question about the Naim CDS3, I have no personal
experience of this player, but there was an extensive review in HFN in
October 2003, where the lab measurements were all pretty much what one
would expect except that noise was a trifle high at -93.5dB and frequency
response was down by 1.2dB at 20kHz. However, even if these figures are a
bit less than one would expect in a modern player, they are very unlikely
to be audible. Output impedance was low at 25 ohms, so there should be no
problem driving any sensible length of cable and subsequent amplifier. If
you like the look and facilities of the Naim, I can't think of any
technical reason not to buy one, other than the price.

S.