I’m with you Lindsay, very happy to be stopping at a 552/300 set up.
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A great place to be….full stop.
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Having owned a NAP300 and the mighty NAP500 (500 still in its box) paired with the 552 I’m now a happy chappy with a 552DR/250DR. The performance of a this amp works exceptionally well with SL2s within my room.
The biggest thing for me is the reduction to one stack of Fraim, BIG win win!
Now before people say the 500 couldn’t of possibly been setup correctly well it was. All burndies off the floor, no cables touching I spent an age separating the cables making sure everything was just so and to be fair the full 500 setup sounded sublime.
I realised a few things when the Nait 50 (now back in the second setup) was introduced in the main setup everything came together beautifully, so I thought with the demise of the value of secondhand (all kit not just Naim) kit I couldn’t let the 552DR go for silly money so decided to keep it and return back to a single Fraim stack paired with a 250DR absolutely no regrets, ticks all the boxes.
The 552DR/250DR has superb drive a thoroughly enjoyable listen the SL2s still sound twice the size too, an old 300/SL2 pairing saying 
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Hey @mech , I can’t comment on what is causing the less than satisfactory result on your 500 system but I’ll offer some advice as you know I’ve recently gone through a roller coaster journey myself with the 500DR and the story had a very happy ending.
Firstly I’d say you need to get glass and Naim cup and bearing balls underneath all your gear. Ideally it’s the Full Fraim you want but a more cost effective way is just to have the glass custom built and buy the support cup/bearing ball separately. It’s crazy how the mechanical aspect to hifi affects the sound. It’s also in Naim’s core philosophy so avoiding that is a sub optimal setup.
Secondly I would strip down the entire system and clean all the contacts with cotton bud and isopropyl alcohol or deoxit -make sure to ensure the contacts have no debris. Then build the system again with care and attention avoiding cables touching. As best as you can allow all cables to clear floor and wall and have a relaxed static state with what I can only describe as a suspension between components.
i would personally get a NAC A5 into the system just to see if it doesn’t improve on things. Cables are very system dependant. From my personal experience I certainly would not pair a super lumina with Dynaudios. My last comments are for your consideration and I don’t mean any offence but I recently had Dynaudio Heritage Special speakers and I just ended up bored with them after my initial few weeks. They didn’t have the X Factor. I’d rather own a flawed speaker that has the X factor than a perfectly balanced one that doesn’t. This is also true of electronics for me. So perhaps your Special 40s just don’t work in your room or to your taste. Therefore any amp in the world won’t make you super thrilled with them.
Oh and lastly do you have a distribution block? If so, only plug that into your socket and all your electronics connected to the distribution block.
Good luck buddy.
Just reading that back I thought I should add my final advice. I have owned the 250 DR and I’m not one who gets carried away with things but the 500DR is a marked improvement as it should be for the money. This is why at no point am I suggesting to change your 500DR.
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Super tks for the advice @khan84.
The Naim Fraim (currently all on Fraim Lite) will be my next target as I think isolation might be somewhat key here. That will be my first tasks toward improvement.
The SuperLumina comment is very interesting. I might get a Kudos speaker to try soon. For NAC A5, it is too inflexible if you know what I mean haha…
I have the WireWorld Matrix which my dealer said a lot of Naim user uses it, so that is what I go with. It is plug into my socket using a spare PowerLine.
In all honesty, I simply think a speaker change is in order here.
I enjoy your Naim journey very much and you are an inspiration for me.
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You’re most welcome buddy. As you’re amongst the few on the forum who has standmount speakers (like me) with a 500 series setup, I will make the assumption that you also have an affinity for standmount speakers over floor standers.
If you’re going to demo some standmounts, I’d strongly suggest Harbeth 30.2XD and Rogers LS5/9 SE. What is the most critical aspect is to seat them on open frame metal or open frame solid wood stands (NOT TONTRAGER). I have a strong feeling you will be thoroughly impressed.
Why being against Tontrager?
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I am actually pretty noob/new and Uniti Star is my first foray into Hi-Fi. And I bought Special 40 right around that time. Having never got the intention to explore floorstander. But now I likely will go for floorstander only as I kind of don’t like to deal with stand as separate entity. I find the stand very easy to not line up properly. Sometimes it wobble and I have a hard time making it balance.
I’ve found it depends on the stands, my new metal stands for my Harbeth 30.2’s are a complete different style to my old ones and completely solid no wobble at all. But I hope you find speakers you like that go well with your amazing system.
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Having done the 52–>552 and the 300–>500 swaps, I can say that the latter was much more musically important than the former, in defiance of the ‘source first’ doctrine.
These upgrades however do completely different things and the merits of each are really not fully appreciated until the 552 is paired with the 500.
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How much? Someone will have fun times ahead 
£7950
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I had 30.2XDs in my system about 2 years ago. I finally decided to bite the bullet and buy tontragers as i thought they were beautiful in their appearance and will probably sound amazing. I am of the strong opinion that materials absolutely contribute to the sound. Metal sounds like metal and so on. So I thought the solid maple used in the Tontrager stands will give a more natural tone to the music. Which it did.
Having said that after many low level listening sessions, one day I had the opportunity to crank the volume up. I found that the leading edge attack had become softer and because of this the sound seemed slower. I wasn’t getting a driving attack and pace and bouncy rhythm that I was accustomed to. As it had been a few months since I changed the stands I didn’t attribute this change to the stands and became very frustrated with my system. It actually led to me changing a few components.
Anyway long story short I ended up with another pair of 30.2XDs on open frame metal stands years later. This was after a long (almost 2 year) search for speakers ranging from all prices.
Once I decided the Harbs were the pick of the bunch I once again bought the tontrager stands and guess what…the sound lost its vibrancy again. Although this time I had identified that it’s the tontrager stands.
I was about to move back to open frame metal stands like the something solid XF but I thought I’d take the risk with solid rosewood stands by ‘Mavin’ in Thailand.
It was a huge risk as the solid maple stands didn’t work and the Mavin stands are a similar design albeit a stronger wood.
This time though I got the best of both worlds. I got the speed that I was used to from metal stands but I also got the natural tone that I was craving. This along with a weighty bass that I just could not get from metal stands.
Sorry for the long write up but I assure my findings are absolutely spot on. I can be very obsessive. lol
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Thanks a lot 
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Another thing with these stands is to use granite plinths underneath. I think mine are 20mm thick or maybe more. Then make sure they are sitting solid on the floor and all level. I use small black cards (business cards) to ensure they are level
Great thread…
Always wondered about going for a 500DR from 300DR but for many reasons have never gone there although tempted…
There is commentary here which suggests that setup is key and glass and ball bearing and fraim etc. I’ve never used fraim and really not keen on the idea and like my Isoblue. So does this suggest that only the best can be achieved from Fraim and that something like Isoblue could take life out of the 500DR.
Thanks,
Nick
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In your case , having Kudos 707, I doubt that you won’t hear a very noticeable upgrade going from 300 dr to 500 dr.
The OP case is much different and logical, as his speakers would be happy even with an SN3.
I don’t have the Naim Fraim but I have seated the Naim gear on glass, cup and ball bearing. As long as that is done I think you’re set up perfectly fine.
The glass does contribute to the fast attack of Naim gear. It will sound absolutely fine without it but when you want the optimal setup glass is necessary imo
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Isoblue here and I can confirm the 500DR doesn’t sound lifeless. The dealer who sold me the 500 said an upgrade to full Fraim wouldn’t make much difference (maybe 3-5% whatever that means) as Isoblue is already very good. As a result I’ve never been tempted to change.
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