Naim Cds1

First product and the first serious cd player I owned. A word of warning if you are new to this site I will say now that I have very little interest in the technology behind the products. The most important thing for me is the sound quality.

Back to business the Naim cds1 was Naims first cd player. It is a two box unit. One unit houses the controls and has a lid on the top where the cd is placed. The other unit houses the power supply. Naim is adamant that separating the power supply is essential to extract the best possible performance out of a cd player. It is something they still do today and nearly all of their current cd players can be upgraded via an outboard power supply.

They also tell their retailers to keep the power supply as far away from the control unit as possible. This is to stop the power supply from interfering with delicate audio signals being processed in the control unit.

When confronted by Naims first cd player you will most likely be rather startled at it's weight. It is heavy! It is also green (green?) This is not to say that it is environment friendly and lives on some farm in wiltshire and rescues old british phone boxes to then release them back into the wild when they can fend for themselves.

No, I mean the colour is green. Don't ask me why it is green, I do not know. In fact nobody knows it is an audio legend. Any way it is big, green and heavy and has to be used on the top shelf of you rack as it is a toploader. The original price was about £3,000. Cheap eh!

What does it sound like? Good! It is a very fast sounding and highly rhythmic player. You put music in it and it turbocharges it! Up beat pop sounds up beat, the police sound more like the police. It definitely sounds faster than most, if you like that about it then great if you don't look else where.

It has a drive that most cd players lack but not turntables and it is in the timing stakes where it sounds more analogue than most other players out there. After a while you get used to the speed and to be honest I always thought it was probably more correct. Slow passages have a purpose to them that carries them along, but never sound rushed.

The other thing that really differentiates this player from others is it's recording perspective. What I mean by this is how it presents the recording into your room. It is very up front. The lead singer will sound as if they are stood forwards of your speakers and will sound very live.

The player presents the musicians as if they are in your room rather than in a recording studio somewhere else. Some people like this and some people don't. Is it correct? Probably not, but that isn't that important, if you like to feel that the music you are listening to is a live event in your living room then this is a very good player for that.

Now for the negatives. Unfortunately like all equipment it suffers from a few foibles. The biggest problem with this player is how it separates instruments because it just doesn't bother! It presents the music like a big musical elastic band in the middle of the speakers! If there is a
complex passage of music with ten different instruments you will find it difficult to hear all of them.

The other thing it won't do is give you a three dimensional image. The singer will not sound in front of the band. They will all sound on the same level and quite flat. Again if this is an issue look else where. The only other concern regarding this player is it's tonal qualities. I would say it sounds quite bright, it also does very little to smooth over any hi frequency nasties.

Smooth as silk it is not, it leaves everything in tact even the stuff most people don't want to hear, but then when you listen to a live band or even just somebody playing an acoustic guitar you are very much aware of things like fret buzz from the guitar and tuning errors and such. This ties in with the ethos of this machine. It sounds live and live means not always smooth, not always pleasant.

This is a great machine at what it does. It is fast, times superbly and presents the music in a live sound setting. It will appeal to people who want to concentrate on musical performance rather than the recording. It may sound edgy or bright at times, but what it always sounds is exciting and for some nothing else will come close.

Ebay Alert!

These come up fairly often and I would personally not pay much more than £1,000, unless of course they have had a new laser mechanism (now discontinued) Also if it has just been serviced that would be worth a few quid more.