News

Naim Shows CD555 Reference CD player (21/10/2005)

Naim Audio is showing and demonstrating the CD555 reference CD player at The Hi-fi and Home Entertainment Show, Heathrow 23rd-25th September 2005.

Scheduled for delivery in December 2005, the CD555 with 555PS delivers the ultimate musical performance from a CD.

The CD555 doesn't try to play DVDs, DVD-As or SACDs. It doesn't have a digital output. It doesn't have a variable output. The CD555 just plays CDs and at that it excels. CD555 - the best CD player ever.

Key features:

Separate power supply from transformer secondary winding, triple regulated, right through to the critical master clock and dejittering circuitry. Special attention has been paid to reducing capacitive coupling of high frequency noises from other supplies into this super quiet clock supply through interconnect cables and wiring looms.

Two Burndy interconnects between power supply and head unit, one carrying digital supplies and the other analogue to extend this principle of reducing capacitive coupling between power supplies as far as possible.

Significant upgrading of power supplies from existing designs. More regulators have been used to isolate the supplies to various parts of the circuit, minimising their interaction.

The Digital-to-Analogue Converters (DAC) are mounted in a "quiet room". Apart from ensuring that all critical signals reaching the DAC have immeasurably low jitter the chips are inside a shielded enclosure to keep their environment free of the varying electric and magnetic fields that inevitably occur in a CD player. The converters can do their work isolated from all external influences.

CD555

Machined transport tray. Much heavier, solid to reduce resonance and vibration amplitude. High Mass much improves suspension characteristics, isolation from chassis and other components. Low infra red reflective coatings around CD to reduce eye pattern interference and noise. Extremely low inertia and low resonance CD clamp. Philips Pro CD mechanism. Die-cast chassis. Very heavy brass sub-chassis, separate for digital and analogue electronics. Analogue stages, I-to-V conversion, filtering and output driver are from discrete parts. Seven-pole output filters. Separate low jitter clock circuit with its own multi-stage regulated power supply. Post digital filter de-jitter circuitry eliminates jitter. DACs isolated from electric and magnetic fields. Very heavy, low resonance casework. Motorised door, top loader.

555PS

Seven regulated power supplies including separate one for the clock circuitry. Five secondary windings on transformer. Transformer 40% larger than that in XPS2. Separate dedicated analogue and digital output sockets (Burndy) to minimise high frequency noise modulation of analogue supplies. Backward compatible with CDS3 and CDX2. Low resonance case with isolating feet.

www.naim-uk.com