The CD at 40 years – Nimbus Records

One thing I seem to be more and more conscious of these days is a growing nostalgia for the CD.
Let’s face it, most of us have lived through its entire evolution and, as we are coming up to the 40th anniversary of the first commercial release in October, that’s a lot of time and experiences to reflect back on.

The early few years were actually quite challenging ones. CD sound just wasn’t that good back then. Digital to analogue conversion was at a relatively primitive stage, especially at consumer product level, and what we heard was often the equivalent of the proverbial fingernails scratching the chalkboard. Really not nice.

And yet, for many of us, there were still so many exciting aspects to the little silver discs. No changing of sides, up to 74 minutes of music, no snap, crackle and pop and the gradual release of some amazing back catalogue that might never have seen the light of day again, had it not been for the rise of the compact disc.
In terms of the evolution of my own hifi systems, the quest began in 1986 and one of the first purchases at that time was this wonderful Nimbus Digital Sampler 1986.

Discs like this are very important to me, as they are a great way to appreciate how far home digital sound reproduction has come over almost 40 years.
Nimbus has the distinction of being the first UK company to produce compact discs and you will see their name printed on many CDs you own from the past.

Nimbus was also, and still is, a classical label of note. Their big selling point was their “Natural Sound” method of recording instruments and voices to sound as untampered with as possible, but which also allowed the listener to hear the acoustic in which they were recorded, which was often the Nimbus HQ in their glorious location of Wyastone Leys in Monmouth.

The 15 tracks here have been rolled out many, many times down the years and always when I’ve made a system upgrade of one kind or another.
Very recently I moved from tubes to US-made Benchmark solid state amplification, which is widely recognised as perhaps the most transparent and distortion-free equipment available, regardless of price.

The power amp uses THX two-channel technology aimed at achieving unprecedented dynamic range, allowing all recordings, analogue or digitally sourced, to be heard in an unfettered and absolutely complete way.
The effects are stunning and playing this Nimbus disc demonstrates that, in many respects, amplification has largely been ignored as a way of extracting better sound from digital. The effects with vinyl are just as profound, however.

Benchmark’s goal is to create a signal path that is as transparent as possible to the source, adding nothing in the way of colouration.
While this may sound like a recipe for dry and sterile sound, the polar opposite applies. Without hindrance from the dac/pre/power amp chain, the fidelity and musicality is absolutely amazing.

My sonic memory is pretty good and I could never have imagined when I bought this sampler disc that I’d still be hearing so much more from it all these years later.
This is the real joy of hifi and there is still so much more to extract from CD, and LP too.

I will say, however, that the effects are even more pronounced with true hi-res recordings, including the DSD layer of SACDs. But to hear such glorious music from one’s legacy CDs is a thrill that’s hard to beat.

Chris Wright | Now Spinning Magazine