Naim CDX2 CD Player

Naim CDX2 CD Player

Naim Audio has a special place in British audio, thanks to it's founder and inspirational leader Julian Vereker, a hugely talented mechanical and electronic engineer with a passion for, amongst many things, music. Founded in 1973, Naim has always had a firm philosophy of music first, measurements second - each Naim product is extensively auditioned as part of the product development process to make sure that it delivers clear, emotional music making ability. Naim products are designed to bring the closest facsimile of a live music event into your home listening environment, to give you maximum pleasure from your music collection.

The one box Naim CDX2 CD player is a very high performance source component designed to gain maximum musical enjoyment from your CD collection. This has been achieved through extensive power supply regulation, thus isolating the complex internal circuits from noise and electromagnetic fields, which gives a much purer backdrop from which the music can emerge.

Notable among the modifications to the new version are the inclusion of a switchable digital S/PDIF output for use with external digital to analogue converters and a BNC connector for correct impedance matching, as well as performance-enhancing modifications to the internal boards. Note that the digital output can only be accessed when the analogue outputs are disabled by the user.

Analogue audio can be accessed via either the gold plated RCA phono socket outputs, or the 5-pin DIN connector. Naim's preferred approach is to take the DIN output, thanks to it's better signal ground structure.

The internal power supply is fed by a 300VA toroidal transformer, which is large enough for a 150 per channel power amplifier. The ac output is rectified by separate silicon bridge rectifiers before being filtered by over specified reservoir capacitors. Twenty voltage regulator stages them feed ultra pure and stable dc current to each separate circuit block, thus achieving the best possible noise isolation. For further performance upgrades the optional, external Naim XPS or 555PS power supplies can be added to the CDX2.

The newly designed four-layer motherboard allows for much shorter signal paths and better grounding than possible before, again providing audible improvements in musical realism. Naim software engineers have written the firmware for the Philips SAA7324 to optimise every aspect of the digital servo processing and RF decoding of the laser signal. Virtually zero jitter (time error) is generated by the master clock circuitry which reduces any distortion of the recovered audio signal to miniscule levels.

Separate DAC's are used for each stereo channel with eight times over-sampling, followed by a discrete design seven pole active filter to remove any non-audio band signals.

The mechanical aspects of the CDX2's design have been equally important in obtaining large sound quality increments - a new swing tray mechanism has been designed from glass reinforced polymer to a specifically calculated weight to minimise vibration and maximise stability of the CD disc when spinning, which makes for an easier job for the servo and error correction circuits. This stability of the CD is vastly aided by the low mass magnetic puck which effectively clamps the CD to the motor spindle.

Springy vibration resistant feet have been fitted to the alloy enclosure to prevent air borne feedback and footfall from affecting the accurate laser reading of the disc. The alloy chassis and case isolate external electromagnetic interference from the sensitive audio circuitry contained within the CD X2, preserving all of the musical detail recovered from the CD. Additional internal radio frequency shielding forms yet another barrier to harmful electrical pollutants to ensure the CD X2 brings you the best possible sound quality.

For those audiophiles looking for a CD player that will rival a high end turntable in terms of musical enjoyment and satisfaction and play both standard red book CD's and HDCD's, then the CDX2 must be a serious contender.