I’m hoping you can help me with a question I’m dare not experiment on. Here’s a photo of my NAC 82, with Hi-Cap, Flatcap and Snaxo, 2 x NAP 250s. There’s a CD playing at a decent volume. But you’ll see that the NAC 82 volume control is at about 8 o’clock. As you will all know it will physically turn as far as 4 o’clock.
Question. What would happen if it turned the NAC 82 volume to maximum? I’m guessing there’d be damage to the speakers (Linn Keilidhs). But suppose I had speakers which would handle massive output. Would the amplifiers themselves(82? 250s?) crash out on distortion? If so, why does the 82 volume control go up to levels which can’t be reproduced without distortion.
Thank you for any insight you can provide. I’m obviously not going go turn it up to max in real life
love to everyone, Stevie xx
I can’t say with certainty what would happen with your amp and speakers if you were to turn the volume right up, but once it starts distorting there’s a good chance that one or more speaker drivers could expire. IIUC Naim amps have overload protection and will shut down in some way before damage happens to them, but you would need to consult the manual or Naim to be sure of that.
Beyond that, have a read of this still-current thread, with much the same question, and where I explained what is actually happening with the volume control.
@Richard.Dane, maybe worth considering if this question is sufficiently similar to move into the other thread?
I have an NAC52, so I imagine that the volume control is similar to that of the NAC82.
I have never dared put the volume control much past the ‘11 o’clock’ mark, if you get what I mean. I can turn the wick up a little bit more for the Tuner or CD buttons than I can for the Phono input.
It’s plenty loud enough like that. Any louder and I would probably damage the plastic membranes inside my QUAD ESL57s - which would be silly, as well as potentially very expensive.
I suppose that, if I had coffin-style loudspeakers in wooden boxes, I might be able to turn the volume control a bit higher.
I don’t think most of the preamp’s output is over the first 25%: if you turn higher you will find it goes louder, until if unless such time as either the power amp or speakers are overloaded. The explanation is given in the other thread I linked in my previous post, however I am unaware of the reason for the excessive gain not being addressed.
Most do. But what’s stopping manufacturers to limit their attenuators to a min -30db (or whatever suits their source voltages) instead of 0dB which is totally useless?
The reason why Naim’s traditional pre-amps have such high gain is because they sounded best that way (When versions were tried with lower gain they just didn’t sound quite as good).
It has only become an issue because of two factors - firstly the arrival of digital saw the source line output greatly increase from what had been around 300-500mV to 2V or even higher in some cases. This would still be OK though (Naim pre-amps have excellent headroom and can take a 7V input) had it not been for lots of music to be mastered in more recent years to be as loud as possible. Just compare an early CD against the same that has been more recently remastered - the latter will invariably sound much louder for the same set volume level.
Of course, on kit where the traditional volume pots are not used there has been the ability to trim input levels, which really helps.
Thank you, that is really helpful. I’ve also got a NAC 112/ NAP 200 combination, and the volume control on the 112 has way more useful a range, presumably for the reasons you say xx
The 112 uses a completely different volume control from most other Naim preamps. From memory I think it’s a resistor ladder rather than the more common Alps pot, so perhaps not surprising that it behaves rather differently.
So true - I’ve got a few 80s albums on both original CD and more recently remastered CD. The latter can’t usually be played above about 9 o’clock on my 202 before it sounds unpleasant, whereas the original 80s CDs can be pushed to 11 or even 12 o’clock and still sound great. As they would say on the Hoffman Forum, they’re very crankable!
Thank you, I would never have known. My experience of Naim pre-amps doesn’t extend much beyond the 112. Was their move to a different type of volume control (RL) in the 112 continued in their later pre-amps, or did they continue to use both types (RL, Alps) as they developed, or was RL an experiment tried on the 112 and subsequently dropped? I’m intrigued! love Stevie xx
Thank you, I would never have known. My experience of Naim pre-amps doesn’t extend much beyond the 112. Was their move to a different type of volume control (RL) in the 112 continued in their later pre-amps, or did they continue to use both types (RL, Alps) as they developed, or was RL an experiment tried on the 112 and subsequently dropped? I’m intrigued! love Stevie xx
As far as I’m aware this was a bit of a one-off for Naim, in the 112, and I think maybe one of the Nait 5 variants. Other than that I’m pretty sure they used Alps pots in everything, at least until the Unitis and New Classics arrived.
No, it used the same control as the Superuniti, which was also much more user friendly than the Alps pots. Statement also didn’t have one, but I wasn’t thinking in compiling a complete list!
