EVERY MODERN CD PLAYER NOWDAYS HAS A DIGITAL OUTPUT. WHY NAIM
DO NOT PROVIDE THIS FEATURE?


Date: March 31, 1998 02:41 PM 
Author: julian vereker 
Subject: DPA 

Are they back in business? The reason we don't put a digital output
is not so much the extra circuitry, but if one enables the digital
out, noise is radiated around the place which increases the jitter.

Jitter wasn't in the audiophile's vocabulary until we started to
make single box players and drew attention to TIME in the digital
domain.

julian 




I'M GLAD TO SEE THAT, YOU CONSERVATIVE PEOPLE, DECIDED TO
INCLUDE HDCD IN YOUR CD PLAYERS.  MY QUESTION IS WHY HDCD
IS INCLUDED ONLY IN TOP RANGE PLAYERS?


Date: June 04, 1997 12:26 PM 
Author: julian vereker 

You asked about HDCD. 

We didn't put it into the CD3-5 for several reasons, one there
isn't enough room on the pcb, and to move some of the circuitry
onto another board would have taken it out of the price range.

Secondly to optimize a system using the HDCD digital filter and
separate DAC one needs additional power supplies and regulation -
more cost.

Thirdly, at this point we have no evidence that HDCD is actually
better in our systems, although the spec for their digital filter
is excellent. So we felt that to offer the best quality reproduction
that we could for the price, it was better not to compromise this
by adding a facility that would be of only occasional use.

But we did put a feature that everybody could enjoy every time they
use the player - the ability to power the analogue circuits
externally, which does offer a very worthwhile upgrade.

Ok? 

julian 



Date: July 22, 1999 02:22 PM 
Author: julian vereker 
Subject: HDCD 

Sorry, but the HDCD decoding takes place in the digital filter chip
and since this is an integral part of the design it cannot be
changed at a later date.

At the time the CD3.5 was being designed the HDCD chip both took
up too much space, and was too expensive to include in a player at
this price point offering the level of performance on regular CDs
that the 3.5 does. If we had included it, the overall performance
would have been much less, although the 'magic' letters hdcd would
have appeared from time to time on the display - we chose performance.

We write all the control software for our CD players, and we could
update that if there was a performance advantage to be gained in
the future.

Both the Naim CDX and CDSll are hdcd capable. 

julian 




I'VE READ SOMEWHERE THAT YOU MODIFY YOURSELF SOFTWARE IN YOUR CD PLAYERS...


Date: November 06, 1999 10:08 AM
Author: julian vereker
Subject: software

The software that controls the CD mech in Naim players is written by
us, and among other fancy bits, it has continuous checking of the
reflectivity and the laser is adjusted on the fly to cater for varying
discs (but not enough to read RW discs).

I am very surprised by the experiences of others in this thread
concerning the results obtained from CDRs. We have spent a huge amount
of time trying to get good copies and none of the systems quoted that
we have tried, gave us what we would call a satisfactory copy.

What are we doing wrong?

julian



Date: September 12, 1999 09:52 AM
Author: julian vereker
Subject: error correction

There are two issues, one is the physical dimensions of the CD, the
others are the errors that come from miss-pressing, scratches and
other data related nasties.

To get the last iota of performance from our players we take the
Philips Red Book specs as gospel - to do otherwise would compromise
the quality of all the correctly manufactured CDs. The addition of
tubes to the older pucks may play more CDs, but to us the sound is
compromised, and a better solution is to fix the occasional CD (as
posted above).

The data errors are dealt with in all our newer players as well or
better than any on the market, our software dynamically adjusts
parameters 'on the fly' while playing the CD in order to help achieve
this.

I think it is unreasonable to blame the player when the disc is out of
spec.

julian