And the Winner is...

[Tom Tom Audio]

I'm delighted to announce that Paddy Ford has won the first pair of Focal headphones in our member's free prize draw.

We've been knocked out by the response to the launch of the club with over 200 members having joined already in our first month and we'll draw another name for a pair of headphones when we reach 250 members.

If you have yet to join please do come on board as there are many benefits and if you are already a member please do get involved and share your fascinating Naim stories with us all.

Cheers

James

[Paddy Ford]

Many thanks to James and Henry for the Focal Spirit One headphones, I heard them at the Festival of Sound recently and was very impressed so I’m very pleased indeed to have won these.  I must admit to being a bit of a headphone enthusiast after having to go down this route when family requirements precluded using the speakers of an evening.  Consequently I now have a small collection, mainly of Grado’s and a Naim Headline 2 powered by a Hicap 2 connected directly to my CDX2 / XPS2 combination.  The Spirit One’s will fit really well into my headphone scheme of things.  Being of the closed back variety they can be used without disturbance on the trains and planes upon which I seem to spend most of my life these days.  I now have had time to run the Focals in for a couple of days and think I’m in a position to give a personal assessment of their sound qualities.  They are very well made and comfortable and overall I find them to be very ‘Naim like’ in their presentation, that is a rhythmic and punchy sound with loads of detail but not too forward or bright, a bit like the Focal speakers heard at the recent Festival in fact.  Compared to the higher Grado models they have less bass and bass dynamics but this may loosen up with use.  The nearest Grado model they come close to, that I’ve had experience with, are the SR325is which says something about their quality of sound.  Going off at a slight tangent here, I’ve recently been experimenting with the headphone socket on my Naim Supernait.  The Supernait is fully ‘pimped’ with Hicap 2 and Highline interconnect and I was quite surprised to find that this sounded not a million miles from the Headline configuration, certainly better than the Headline plugged into the tape socket of the amp but using the Hicap on the Headline and not the SN.  I can certainly recommend the Focal Sprit One and Supernait duo, I wonder what the ‘Spirit Twos’ will sound like?

Paddy Ford

[Tom Tom Audio]

Thanks for the feedback Paddy and I'm really glad you're enjoying them. Personally I think they offer outstanding performance and are an absolute bargain.

Cheers

James