333 and 222

yes, noticed you seem to have the Confidence 20, hence my comment

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I’ll just have to see how they work then. My current speakers are 60cm from back and side walls. I could increase the distance to the back wall, but they are already quite close together (just under 2m apart) so I can’t do much there. I do have them toed in to point directly at the listening position which helps with side wall reflections.

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Wow, you’ve certainly flashed the cash in 2023 :grinning:. I’m sure your 333/332/350 system sounds awesome! Pity my pockets aren’t quite so deep!

It’s interesting what you say about the usability of the 222 compared to the 333/332. I’d have thought they would operate very similarly.

I think I saw within the thread that you are going to try Kudos S20A as part of your home demo. I currently use a pair of these attached to 222/300 into NC250. I have them positioned just 10-15 cm away from back wall with no detrimental impact on SQ that I can hear (YMMV). They have a downward firing port which fires onto the bottom plinth so I believe that Kudos have tuned the port to operate at that distance. I also have the speakers on Gaias which I feel further enhances SQ. Floor is concrete with engineered wood on top.

Whilst I consider what would I change I suspect that in reality it will not be anything as the current boxes provide sounds that suit both myself and Mrs O and cost to improve gets significantly higher (note to self - must do lottery ticket :joy: :joy:). Music is fairly wide ranging - classical, blues, very light jazz, prog rock, female vocal (folk/indie/country), piano, nothing too heavy from a rock perspective.

Good luck with the auditions and do keep us informed as to how it goes.

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Sorry for thread drift but that is interesting. Have you tried them out of the room boundaries? Maybe a meter or so out from the walls depending on your room dimensions?

Unfortunately not possible due to furniture and consideration to aesthetic requirement of Mrs O.

Link to image.

I see. Then you probably shouldn’t try them out in the room. It just might sound so much better you need to sit down and negotiate the layout of the room​:sweat_smile::scream:

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Ah, good to know about the downward firing port on the Kudos S20a - I was sure one of my shortlist speakers had one! I’ll certainly be giving them a home demo. Thanks for the info.

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I typically can’t stand ported speakers. It’s one of the very few ported designs that doesn’t sacrifice speed and rhythm. It’s based off F1 diffuser technology.

Placement is not as critical and they work well in smaller rooms and don’t need a ton of space behind them.

They do take a few months to break-in though.

I’ll certainly be trying them both (Splendor and Kudos) at home. My dealer stocks both. Thanks.

First step complete - 222/250 installed …… now I just need to run them in :grinning:.

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Congratulations. the 222 and 250 work really well together, Enjoy!

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Hi @matthewk would you mind elaborating on this a bit? What issues did you have with the 333/332?
The Classic equivalents such as NDX/282 etc. were certainly pretty clunky compared to the all-in-one models, and Naim have obviously tried to address this, so I’m just trying to understand where the shortcomings are.

I want to be clear. There are no issues. But it’s just clunky. The two remotes are different. You have to pair the 333/332 and then it seems like the 333 controls most of the operation. Digital 3 on the 333 corresponds to the “stream” button on the 332, Preamp 2 on the 333 is the “Phono” DIN input. I’d rather use the remote from the 332 since I can directly select sources button, but there doesn’t seem to be a way for that to communicate back to the 333 that I want Digital 4 when I push the stream button. Worse is that I can’t seem to disable to less than 5 input options on the 333. I’d love to get rid of Spotify, Naim Radio, Tidal and everything and just leave the Apple TV (digital 3). I only use that and Roon.

Again, once you get used to it isn’t not a problem, but it could have used a bit of human factor engineering on the user interface/app/physical buttons. It’s clear the 333 is software driven and the 332 is more of an embedded system. It’s certainly not as clunky as I found the NDX/282, but it’s similar in may ways. Just not intuitive.

All of this is just me being a picky engineer. I am guessing some people wound’t be annoyed. The sound is well worth the curious integration and usage between the two.

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You are not being picky, it really is something to consider in products at this price. Although cost is the main reason I haven’t (yet) gone the route you have also the ease of use with 222 is a big factor. I actually felt the 272 was even better and easier to use in this regard.

There really is no excuse for having different remotes. In fact whilst you mention the NDX/282 was clunky, l use in another system NDX/Nait XS with system automation I only need the NDX remote and this selects inputs on Nait as does using the Naim app.

I hope that perhaps some software updates could perhaps improve things a bit.

Thanks for the info as I found what you highlighted very important to potential buyers.

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Thanks. I don’t think there’s anything there I couldn’t live with. I would only be using one input on the preamp.
I never use Naim remotes, to me they are horrible and they stay in the box. The 1st gen streamer remotes were so much better. I just use the app.
Preamp input selection should be accessible in the app once system automation is set up. I agree that it would be nice to disable all unused inputs, but this has never been an option with previous models. At least you can change the order in which they are displayed, so that the ones you use are at the top of the list.

Do you mean the 332? You can certainly disable any input on a second generation streamer or any Uniti.

No, sorry I meant the streamer inputs. Some can’t be disabled (such as USB, Airplay) so they always clutter up the front panel display and the app.
Some of us asked Naim is they could change this, and the answer was no, but instead they implemented the option to reorder the inputs on the app, so that at least you can put unused ones at the bottom of the list.

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Yes, this. Just as you describe it.

If the new devices are like NDX2 you can hide some unused stuff via the device web server (like USB input).

No way to remove via remote or app, web site only.

So when we cycle inputs on NDX2 via remote scrolling across screen we only have Vinyl, TV, Radio - no fluff.

On the app we see only TV, Radio, Vinyl, Rips (uPnP), Tidal and favs.

Vinyl is just there to switch our 252 to Aux2 via SA.