Where Are You All?

Here's a summary of the location of Audiophile Musings readership over the last week:

	36.60%	United Kingdom
	9.80%	Germany
	7.60%	United States
	7.00%	Netherlands
	6.40%	Australia
	3.60%	Luxembourg
	2.80%	Poland
	2.60%	Italy
	1.80%	France
	1.60%	Hungary
	1.40%	Belgium
	1.20%	Europe
	1.20%	Greece
	1.20%	Spain
	1.00%	Turkey
	1.00%	Switzerland
	1.00%	Canada
	1.00%	Denmark
	1.00%	Finland
	0.80%	Malaysia

Stats

Just FYI, here are the stats for Audiophile Musings in the last week.  A bit of an improvement on the first month which racked up a total of 63 page views in the whole month!


Summary

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	25	47	36	34	24	28	29	223	32
Unique Visits	15	26	27	22	16	26	24	156	22
First Time Visits	14	25	22	22	14	25	21	143	20
Returning Visits	1	1	5	0	2	1	3	13	2

Naim Take Streaming Waaaay Up Market

Naim are going whole heartedly for the world of streaming.  Not content with their recently launched entry level (ahem) £2k ND5 XS nor the £3k NDX they've just announced the top of the range NDS at £6250.  Gulp.  But you can't even plug it in for that as you'll need to add at least one of their range of power supplies to get it up and running.  So if you thought Linn's £11k Klimax DS was expensive, just wait until you work out what an NDS and 2 of Naim's top end power supplies adds up to.  The lowest price power supply is £2900, but you can drive the NDS with 2 of the top end NAPS555 which means a whopping £10k.  A streamer from Naim could now set you back over £16k.  Better be good.

I'm really keen to see what kind of reviews this gets and how much existing owners of Naim's top end CD players make of it.  I feel another one of those times rather like the CD vs Vinyl debates of 20 years ago coming to several forums near you soon.  Only this time its bit-perfect digital versus spinny-roundy error prone and noise inducing digital.

Get yer hair-shirts out for this one.  If you'd invested £16k+ in a CD player, are you duty bound to believe that a £12k+ network streamer can't possibly be as good?!?

What Hifi News Page

http://www.naimaudio.com/

New System Photos Published

The new system configuration is now settled into the newly decorated listening room.

Pictures posted on the Images Page - scroll down to near the bottom for the latest.

Meanwhile, In The World of Multi-Channel

I run a pre-pro in my system (a combined pre-amplifier and surround processor that needs to be connected to multiple power amps rather than having built-in power amps) as I like the idea of one decent quality system rather than splitting funds between AV and music systems (although if I had a big enough house and I'd won the lottery, that's exactly what I'd do).

Unfortunately, there's a restricted choice of such products out in the market.  I've used a Meridian Pro-Logic pre-pro for about 11 years and have recently moved to a Linn AV5103.  However, Linn are out of that market and Meridian are only producing products in the stratosphere.

So that leaves Rotel (good value), Arcam (apparently a great product, but not exactly budget) and other esoterics such as Parasound.  Now Bryston has a new product called the SP-3, launching at the Bristol Show later this month.  It won't be a bargain, but its good to see some more choice.  I look forward to trying to find a review!

Slew Of New Cyrus Products and Price Cuts

Cyrus have launched some (what they call) budget products to move themselves back down into a market they've gradually vacated over the past 3 years or so.  They think that under £800 per component is the budget market...

So we're probably off into alphabet soup product naming again.  From what I can gather from the pretty good sources I've checked on, these seem to be the highlights:

CD Transport reduced in price to £600
New 6a Integrated Amp 40 wpc £800
New 8a Integrated Amp 70 wpc £1200
New 6 DAC  which is the 6a integrated but with a DAC £700
New 8 DAC which is the 8a integrated but with a DAC £1200
New Qx DAC with 192kHz upsampling DAC £1400
Some new integrated CD players too
PSX-R power supply down to £500 (hurrah!)

Most interesting for me would be the Qx DAC, but initial information indicates that its special because it upsamples to 192kHz.  Unfortuately the old DAC X+ did that too, so I'm hoping the QX isn't just a re-badging exercise as that box is a bit long in the tooth now and it would be better to see Cyrus pushing hard against the likes of Naim's DAC and the new ARCAM FMJ33 DAC.

Looks like we'll have to wait until the Bristol show for the full details.