Naim Audio ceased production of the old CDS several months ago as the supply of transports from Philips began to dry up. It was a great machine in its day and in fact was responsible for me getting involved in CD in the first place. Prior to the CDS I had a real problem with digital sound in general and the silver disc in particular. Basically I was still hooked into the whole analogue thing. But to my ears the CDS got the fundamentals right for the first time, especially rhythmically where it still excels. But, after seven years of production it was getting a bit long in the tooth and more modern machines were coming along showing sonic improvements in certain areas, particularly fine detail resolution. What Naim needed to do in their own unique way, was to incorporate the latest technologies and hardware into a new machine, which was technically superior to what had gone before, without detracting in any way from the overall musical performance of the original. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the CDS 11.

It was always going to be a two box design. Naim's belief and expertise in the meticulous design of external power supplies has been absolutely established for well over 20 years now. The power supply is the XPS which can also be used to upgrade the cheaper CDX player. Other design features that were carried over are the suspension systems for both the transport and the main board. The rest of the innards are absolutely new.

Externally the CDS11 shows very little cosmetically to distinguish it from its predecessor. The same extruded aluminium cases, transport function buttons and metal feet. The display window is, I believe, slightly smaller and that's about it. There is however a new, better quality, multicore interconnect lead between player and power supply, via the twin Burndy connectors. Signal output from the CDS11 is available only through a lockable Spin din socket, and Naim have also started supplying improved quality signal leads which are compatible with their own preamplifiers. The problem is that they are not compatible with any other preamplifiers and if you want to use any Naim CD player with amplification other than Naim, your options are limited. Adapters are undesirable and there are a limited amount of interconnects available with a 5-pin din socket on one end. More exotic cabling also tends to be difficult to use, due to the cramped confines inside the average din plug, which makes it difficult to solder more robust cable designs. If Naim want to sell this machine to non-Naim amplification users, they are just going to have to bite the bullet and provide an additional output connection of two high quality RCA phono sockets.

In use the CDS11 functions generally as per its predecessor. The small operational differences are that programming is now more quickly and easily achieved by using a delete function and that the display, always rudimentary, can now be switched off altogether, giving a small but worthwhile increase in sound quality. This is a no frills machine, its entire raison d'être being to play music, and it makes no concession to anything other than that.

As with the Mark Levinson No 39 a lengthy burn-in period from new is absolutely mandatory. When I first installed the machine it sounded wild from cold. It was pretty obvious that there was lot more going on than with the old CDS but it was a bit like riding a musical big-dipper. Amazing control and projection alright, but a relentless and in-your-face presentation that left me scratching my head quizzically.

Over the next few days it began to sort itself out and gradually like a giant jigsaw puzzle, piece by piece it began to form the whole picture. It continues to improve though by much smaller amounts even now, a full three weeks after the initial installation. I used it with two contrasting systems. The first an all Naim system comprising a.52 pre-amplifier and a pair of SBL speakers driven actively by two NAP 250 power amplifiers, and the second, an American set-up using a Mark Levinson No 380 pre-amplifier driving their baby power amplifier, the No 331 (100 watts per channel). Speakers were the interesting Platinum Duos. Interconnects for this system were a pair of Descadel silver leads miraculously soldered into a 5-pin din, plug, though I had to leave the plug case off to achieve a connection

From the off, a fully run-in Naim CDS11 is musically right on the button, building enormously on all the good things that the CDS managed. Its sense of rhythm is awesome, and almost touchable, and it quite simply never loses its sense of grip in this area. I'm not talking merely about its control of instrumentation, but its sense of movement and the way in which it lays bare the feeling of a piece of music moving through time and space. This you can think of as the canvas on which the music is painted, and it is an area in which Naim have always excelled. The CDS11 just takes it to new heights.

Another striking aspect of the new player is the way that it opens the music tonally. Every instrument seems to have a greater life and bandwidth, even acoustic double basses have a high frequency presence and sparkle that comes from the realisation of fingers plucking and stopping strings. Acoustic guitars have that shimmering harmonic aura that really does surround a quality instrument; pianos ring with vibrancy and a realistic sense of scale; saxophones are more vibrant and colourful with far less screech. An example of this is certainly Jan Garbarek's Visible World (ECM 2585) where Jan blows his plaintive, and some would say haunting, lines through soprano and tenor saxophones. Too often, when using the old CDS I would avoid playing this disc as the shrill thinness of tone, especially from the soprano instrument, would grate on my ears and make me feel uncomfortable. Garbarek's particular tone is going this way anyway, and that "edge" that he achieves is most definitely meant, but I liked the way the CDS11 burnishes the note leaving it still sour but not painful, just far easier to listen to.

The increase in levels of detail is superb. Not only does it make listening a more involving experience but, coupled with the undoubted musicality of this player, it can lay bare the fabric of the music, opening your ears to elements of performance that may well have gone unnoticed. The relaxed sense of total control led me to lots of extremely interesting discoveries. Instruments that are similar in frequency, or multiples of the same instruments playing together often seem to suffer from a kind of superimposition effect, whereby the instrument that is playing either the loudest or the more dominant note will be the one that the ear picks up on. You can hear the other instrument, but its signature is hidden. The CDS11, on many occasions, and on music that I thought I knew backwards, showed me that where I thought there was unison playing, there was in fact a harmony line being played behind the dominant instrument. We all take different things from music I know, but when a piece of equipment can actually change your mind about something you are very familiar with I start to get excited, and the CDS11 did this on numerous occasions. It pulls you into the piece, opening your mind to possibilities and variations of mood and tonal colour by painting the picture with much finer brush strokes than the original CDS ever could.

Tonal balance is just about as good as it gets, bringing an air of relaxation particularly at the top end where it shows superb transient abilities without growing hard, even at higher volume levels. This more insightful performance at high frequencies is one of the major areas of improvement shown also by the cheaper CDX, particularly when used with the XPS power supply Bass is leaner, tighter and harder and at first seems slightly lighter but this, I soon realised, is just a by-product of the vastly increased control. If anything the CDS11 goes even lower. The real difference though is the way bass notes just appear with no subliminal sense of acceleration preceding them.

Naim of course have their own label and some of my favourite releases are those featuring Antonio Forcione, particularly Meet Me In London with Sabina Sciubba (Naim 021). Antonio is an extremely sensitive player who understands the use of volume as well as any guitarist I have ever heard. He is also smart and tasteful enough to know that studio effects should be used exceedingly sparingly where acoustic instruments and beautiful vocals are concerned and the lovely thing about this album is its lack of adornment. He is a great player, who can conjure moments of tranquillity or excitement with a great choice of notes and a superb understanding of his instrument. The CDS11 was breathtakingly impressive on this CD, and showed with its jet-black backgrounds another area where it significantly betters the old model; its sense of imagery and uncanny focus. Absolutely rock solid and fixed in space, the extra detail laying behind every note or vocal inflection gives a much greater feeling of depth and realism in itself, and even on much more instrumentally complex discs, the CDS11 is unflappable in its sense of control arid its location of instruments within the mix.

Straight comparisons with the old CDS would really last no more than a couple of minutes as the CDS11 is, quite simply, several classes ahead. There is not a single area of musical performance that the new player doesn't take what the old one did and improve upon it by a huge margin. It is a very special machine and I have found no downside to its performance at all. It costs UK£5700 which ain't peanuts, but it should be considered by anyone wanting a really top class CD player, whether they already own a Naim system or not. It really is that good.

Technical Description
Although Naim Audio have their own approach to electronic design they obviously need to source their components externally and it's interesting to note some of the hardware similarities to Madrigal's Mark Levinson No 39 CD Processor. The design approaches though, are very different.

The CDS11 uses a Philips VAM 1205 transport, which is a high quality variant of the CDM12 range. Naim mount this on their own three point suspension system. The main circuit boards are also independently suspended using damped springs. These systems are unlocked before use. The digital filter is the Pacific Microsonics PMD 100 which has the added benefit of offering HDCD decoding (the display will inform you when an HDCD disc is being used). Digital to analogue conversion is handled by two Burr-Brown PCM 1702K 20-Bit converters.

In true Naim style the power supply features receive special attention. The CDS11 has 25 low-noise regulators on the main circuit board, 4 on each of the two analogue output boards and 3 on the servo board, while the XPS has 6 separately regulated very low noise outputs leaving all critical circuitry triple regulated. Roy George, the designer of the CDS11 has always maintained that while it is desirable to house the power supply in a separate box, this is certainly not the case with the converters, which should be located as close to the transport as possible. And judging by the amount of high-end single box players appearing, it would seem that others are beginning to agree.
The unusual disc clamping system stays, though the clamp itself has evolved. Its function remains the same though, and I haven't experienced a single problem with accessing tracks as I have with my old CDS, which required regular cleaning of the disc support, which at times is a bit of a pain.

The Upgrade Trail
If you aspire to own a CDS11 you might want to consider doing it in stages. The CDX is a stand-alone player which can be not so much improved, as totally transformed by the addition of the XPS power supply. This combination is a pretty formidable one in its own right, being in lots of ways better than the original CDS, largely because it is a more sophisticated and refined machine. The CDX could then be traded in against a CDS11 at a later date. Having used a CDX/XPS combination I can tell you that good though it is, it is no match for the CDS11, which is a different ball game altogether.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

NAIM CDS11 - 2 box CD player
Product Type: Two-box CD player consisting of head unit and separate (but essential) XPS power supply.
Outputs. 1 x Analogue (5 pin Din)
Dimensions (w x d x h). 430mm x 300mm x 76mm
(Allow 75mm behind units for PSU connections.)
Shipping Weight 21.2kg

Price
CDS II head unit UK £3700.00
XPS power supply UK £1925.00
Please note that the CDS II cannot be used without the XPS.

Manufacturer
Naim Audio Ltd.
Tel. (44)(0)1722-332266
Fax.(44)(0)1722-412034
Net. www.naim-audio.com

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