Naim's CDS was one of the company's seminal early adventures in digital audio. David Price listens to this sixteen-bit special.

Funny isn't it? This time ten years ago, CD player manufacturers were scrambling to get their first 'Bitstream' digital disc spinners out into the shops. Philips had pipped everyone to the post with its famous CD850/II, and the rest, as they say, is history. All of a sudden, multi-bit CD players and DACs were about as fashionable as your little sister's old Bros singles.
 
All was not what it seemed though. While Marantz fast began to clean up in the budget market with its Bitstream CD52SE, the upper echelons of audio proved less eager to jump onto the good ship 'One Bit'. There were two reasons for this - the first was simply why spoil a winning formula? 

If you'd spent two years honing your multibit based masterpiece, why go back to the drawing board and do it all again simply in order to write that magic word 'Bitstream' on your player's front panel? The second reason was that some tortured souls actually believed multibit sounded better - or should we say 'more musical' - anyway.        
 
Naim's CDS was born from this idea. It was not a trendy piece of cutting edge high tech but it sure as hell sounded good. Launched in 1991, the CDS wasn't a conventional two box player like its rival Linn Karik/Numerik, but was split into CDS CD player and XPS power supply sections. This was because the company considered (and still does) that the separation of transport and DAC caused more problems than it solves. 

The biggest was jitter, which Naim characterised as causing increases in non-correlated distortion, lower resolution and inferior signal-to-noise ratios. True to form, the CDS also lacked a digital output - heresy to a world full of ever-so-trendy high-end two-box players!
 
The CDS duly comprised a proprietary full width Naim box housing an XPS power supply, on top of which another box sat containing the CD player itself. Inside this were selected versions of the Philips TDA1541 Silver Crown multibit DAC chip, and another important part of the equation, a CDM-44 transport.

Many designers still believe this to be the best and most suitable for high quality CD players. Naim did too, which is why they bought as many as they could get their hands on, in anticipation of the CDS's long and happy production run. The transport was augmented by a quality, top loading CD door arrangement and the famous Naim 'puck' which functioned much like an old record stabiliser weight of yore.
 
Needless to say, the player sounded superb, fast propelling itself into the realms of 'classic' CD players. Best characterised as a 'vinyl lover's delight', it offers incredible musicality and firecracker dynamics if properly set up. This isn't as easy as some, requiring careful levelling (just like a turntable), and clean discs and laser (Naim recommend the use of Blu-tack for this purpose, interestingly). 
 
Many believe the CDS to be the most natural 'music making' CD player around, describing it as akin to a good turntable. You get a rich, vivid, tactile sound that simply gushes forth from your loudspeakers, without giving so much as an inkling that it's a digital disc being spun. Listen hard and you'll hear that trademark 'brightly lit' upper mid band and a very slight fizzy quality to the treble, but you'll be churlish in the extreme if you let this interfere with this CD spinner's deliciously musical sound.
 
Downsides? The CDS is a bit finicky sometimes. Like the vinyl turntables it emulates so well, it has more than a passing interest in the quality of the disc surface itís playing. This means meticulous care on your part if you aren't going to get all your silver frisbees sounding like remixes from MC Scratchy. 
 
The CDSII arrived in 1997, loosing the multibit DACs and early transport. Heavily redesigned, it sounded quite different to the original - in some ways better, in others a little more polite. In many ways, the newer version is by far the more sensible option, but many love the original CDS for its character and vintage appeal. 

It's a deliciously musical little box (or two) of tricks, and many will want it for this reason alone. The good news is that there are more around second-hand than you'd think, the bad news is that they're expensive - and sellers can more or less name their own price, circa £700.