Exposure X

Definitely a “hall of Famer” afaic. So much fun to listen to that you forget it’s humble status. I keep promising to keep one but I usually end up clerajng space, maybe aN X or Super XV will end up staying.

Not really. It’s bigger boned. Probably a bit less sprightly at the top, but way more muscular in the bass.

Hush yer mouth!

S.

I get very moody/grumpy sometimes, Dave. Sorry to hear about the depression. Hi-Fi is a good cope, works for me.

S.

Of course it's not!

S.

Im the most moody git on earth so the wife says.. Either up or down, no in between.

I don't have moods. Just generally indifferent to most things these days.

Just hearsay, as Exposure hasn't registered for me since the Kevin Edwards designed? early noughties stuff which actually did to me look and sound a bit like the talk Electronics gear.

Not after they went into integrateds they didn't!

Me liking Naim? I respect their current range as it's more stable and immune to numpty owners shorting the outputs than ever I believe, but the prices asked are mad to me (people buy into it still so maybe I'm the mad one) and the sound is still rather up-front and band limited in the smaller models (mid bass to mid 'treble' with no breathing very low down and still a bit 'grey and grainy in the very highs, often masked with tinselly tweeters in chosen speaker brands to go with them imo).

I report what I hear and remember. The XV and XX weren't quite like the X either. I also remember the JF separates having very unpleasantly (for me at the time) noisy MC phono inputs and a very warm tinged sound polar opposite to CB Naim - maybe the JF Exposures were actually more correct and the Naims totally wrong, it's so long ago now and things have moved on.

Im constantly grumpy cos im constantly short of money although i work hard. Having choices dictated to you by lack of money is utterly Sh#t.

Naim built their reputations on excellent customer service and superb marketing more so than on good sounding kit I would argue, not that I am say that their kit is especially bad.

They are however scaring away a number of their more die hard customers and Hifi dealers since being bought by Focal and then the Financial Capital organisation as their customer service is nothing like it once was. They have also scared away the majority of their more skilled and experienced employees because they brought in someone (who has since been pushed) that wasn't great, so I could see them either going to the wolfs or becoming a lifestyle hifi organisation in the future.

The classic (black) range of kit is much more stable and relaxed sounding than any of their CB or Olive range was, but when compared with other brands they still sound very top heavy with limited sound-stage and bandwidth.

For me Exposure, whilst regular compared with Naim, where always in a different league. The X destroyed the Nait which was it's natural competitor and the pre-power combo's were always better than their equivalent Naim kit too IMHO. The thing was that Exposure just didn't have or necessarily want to have the marketing skills that Naim employed.

I think I can say *today* that Naim's reproduction quality is in a different and far more subtle plane than anything they made certainly up until 2001 or so. It's still a bit up-front but the overly grey and 2-D approach has been all but banished I'd suggest. The 'new' Nait and Super Nait claim even more sonic improvements and also reintroduce a phono stage too, rather than the dac the original Super Nait had (all these middle aged to elderly buyers with large vinyl collections?)...

My local dealer has evolved into a confirmed Naim-centric store but in fairness, totally without the arrogance and attitude 'we/I' may have had in the 80's! They sell Levinson, Chord Electronics and the lovely (to me) good value Quad Artera stuff, but they're just boxes on show compared to the streaming systems they seem to specialise in these days (with the odd turntable added as necessary). Since the 'new' end user's contract is with the dealer that sold it to them, Naim deal with the dealer, not the end user.

Interestingly, Focal don't seem to have the loyalty of Naim. I thought the smaller Kanta's bland, but the larger ones were rather better to me, yet it seems Kudos have got their feet well and truly in the doors here (Cymbiosis too) with the Titan models, which have the same kind of brutish charm(?!) that Isobariks and Saras once had (hope that makes some sort of sense).

The Exposure silver fronted stuff *to me,* sounded more 'HiFi sharp' than the JF stuff, which was limited more by the preamps I think it now appears. I'm actually surprised they're still around frankly, in the same way as Roksan, but maybe they got into Sevenoaks, I don't know (a number of Sevenoaks franchise shops I used to know of have now closed down.

I have heard and quite liked the 3020 pre/power and pre mono range, but when compared with my then Exposure XVII/XVIII I didn't think it was better. Although better than everything up to the 282/SC/250 Naim kit when compared.

That is why I liked the Belles so much, it was in a different league to my previous Exposure pre/power combo, but cheaper than buying the Exposure pre/power or pre/mono kit. I have compared the Belles with a Naim 252/SC/250 combo and it made the Naim sound brittle, unmusical, uninspiring and weak in virtually all ways.

When i went out on the road for a (looking back) disastrous two years back in 2000-2002, one or two then medium sized Naim dealers recommended Focal highly, from the special cone material they still seem to use in their better models, to the then well known inverted dome tweeter I first got to properly know in the much loved Impulse H2's (I think Jimmy's had the gold dome although now it's grey like the bass-mid drivers). I keep forgetting the exact models, but I remember the £1200 ish stand mounters either having a piercing hf (beloved of the 'continentals back then and French speakers in particular) and with port bungs removed, a boomy bass. The dealers selling these used to leave the bungs in but place the speakers tight to the back wall a la Linn and they seemed to sell well demonstrated this way. I never heard the floor standers Macca has (or you Paul) but did hear an early huge Utopia model, which made the musicians sound as if they were playing a couple of streets away - ugh...