After a lot of helpful advice from everyone here, I have bought an 82 from a member in classifieds. Wow, what a difference from the 102! After a year of ownership of the 102 I was increasingly feeling something was missing - not anymore. I cant believe the difference and now sounds great and am now thinking of updating the speakers and DAC, I also think I could do better than the CD player which has always sounded harsh and unfortunately has no digital output!
So, I have gone from a 102 and now have a NAP 180/NAC 82/1 FC
1 - What speakers would pair well with this naim setup?
2 - What dac would be an upgrade to use with the bluesound and would go well with 82/180?
2 - The cd player? Trying to not disappear down a rabbit hole but what would you do!
All good advice so far. If you are on a budget and want ‘bang for bucks’ then I suspect the Ndac will be a big jump - I’m still using a Node/Ndac in a 500 system! A hi cap on the 82 will ensure that lucid Naim sound. I’d also suggest amp and speakers are the last of your worries fo the moment. Naim system definitely respond to the source first philosophy, so there’s still a super cap for the 82 or a XPS for the Ndac or a switch for the Node.
I’d be tempted to look for other views on this community regarding the CD5x. I’ve not heard one but I’m sure others have them - in formal reviews it doesn’t have a reputation for being harsh. It can also be matched with a FC I believe.
I note @IanRobertM recommended servicing. In my experience that’s good advice. It might even be leading to the harshness.
Separately, I’ve had my 82 for years and love it. I previously had a 102/180 set up, then moved to 82/180 for the reasons you cite. When or if looking at your power supply options I’ve always been sceptical about whether the 82 will get more from a SC than an HC or even 2HCs, without a Burndy connection.
As for speakers, the obvious choice would be Naim SBL. I think I was using SBLs when I had that amp combination. If you really want to elevate the performance of the NAC82 preamp, try powering it with a Supercap - it’s one of the biggest leaps in performance I have encountered.
I have had 3 Naim CD players. Cd5Si was okay then CDS2 with XPS2 was amazing and the CDS3 with XPS2 was excellent too.
My favourite is the CDS2.
I would look at nDac and Qutest as others have said. There are other DACs out there and you should be able to get something very good for £1000.
Other option once you have a DAC is get a CD transport. Audiolab 6000CDT is meant to be excellent and could go into new DAC. Then sell the CD5X. It’s only £399 and probably cheaper than servicing the CD player.
An olive HiCap would go well with your system as well. I still have my trusty 82 and have had it will 1 then 2 hicaps and now a Supercap.
And of course the other option is to look at getting a 250 power amp which will give you more power.
Some nice Linn Kelidhs would work well with your system. So many good modern speakers out there as well as more traditional Naim SBLs or various Linn speakers. I have Focal speakers at the moment which work well.
I am also waiting on my 82 to be delivered, hopefully very soon. It will be fed by MB Pro/DAC V1 and an SN2 at the end of it serving as a power amp, no hicap for now. A bit of a Frenkestein, but I expect it to be a boogie monster too :). I wonder how much of an upgrade it will be over the SN2’s preamp section, moreover with the absence of a psu.
It should come with Napsc. It won’t work without Napsc. Then if you have 250 or higher such as 300 or 135s it needs HiCap as well. That’s my understanding.
Yep, it comes with with NAPSC, which is enough, SN2 will do the rest in terms of power supply. Not optimal, but I hope in a near future to purchase an additional, probably will go directly with SC, most probably olive one.
Difficult to get hold of Olive Supercap. I ended up with Supercap 2. I must admit the 2 olive Hicaps looked gorgeous with the 82. I love the look of Naim Olive.
I bet it does, what’s interesting for me is to see how exactly it holds on its own powered only by the integrated. I want to hear its purest form in other words, muscle will come later.
