Naim announces upgraded entry-level CD player, the CD5si
Just in case you thought Naim 's new product launches were all about network music players these days, it's today announced a new entry-level player, the CD5si.
Selling for £995, the new player – which will come as great relief to sub-editors constantly having to remember the italic in the name of the CD5i it replaces, in order to set it apart from the CD5i that replaced! – looks exactly the same as the outgoing model, but features significant changes 'under the hood'.
The CD5si has an a new transport mechanism, designed for improved consistency and longevity, and this is mounted in the latest version of Naim's swing-drawer tray which, the company says, gives it 'the ideal low resonance, stable platform on which to operate'.
The digital to analogue conversion is changed, too: the new player uses the Burr-Brown PCM 1793 DAC, based on the same architecture used in Naim's network players but optimised for CD, rather than having to deal with the many sampling rates of streamed content.
There's also a new higher-precision clock, further reducing jitter, while an improved analogue output filter combines with the new DAC, Naim says, to give a tenfold reduction in distortion.
Finally the power supply voltage has been increased, for greater linearity in the output signal.
Naim says that 'Some may wonder why [we] should use such a large amount of R&D resource on what is perceived as a dying market. Reducing maybe, but dying certainly not, and in some markets sales of CD players - out of the truly budget categories - are growing.
'We in the UK live in a very "early adopting market" and sometimes, because of this, have distorted views on the world’s markets. Some markets are moving much more slowly towards music streaming than others and for those ‘less speedy’ markets an improved Naim entry-level CD player makes huge sense.'
The CD5si is now shipping.
Comments
Yeah, horses-for-courses. I reckon the more CDs you have the greater the need for a streamer! I listen to stuff I'd forgotten I had as I'd never dig it out on CD but put the streamer on random and you get all sorts of surprises...
Funnily enough, I do see the point in CD players. Not everyone has the kit or nous to set up streaming. Also, when you have between five and six hundred CD's in your rack, it's sometimes nice to browse through your old stuff... something you may find difficult when faced with hundreds of thousands of tracks mixed in with what you personally like.
I still have vinyl, and I'll still have CD's for many years to come, and I suspect, so will many others. I think there's room for all formats.
Well I can't see the point in CD players any more. My CD5i has been in the rack, unused for the last 18 months or so - must get round to selling it.
But, as with most Naim kit I love the look (as well as the sound of course) and think it's superb marketing that this looks identical to its predecessor so blokes can clandestinely upgrade without the missus knowing...
The most suprising thing to me is that the outgoing model was £975 (May 2012 Naim prices) and this new version is 'only' £995.
It doesn't seem to follow Naim's normal pattern. (Naim once put the price of the old 'Uniti up about £375 after a 'tweak'.)
I'd have expected this to be at least £1250 or so.
Maybe the new transport is significantly cheaper to buy in.