I am looking for a second hand XPS. there are some that were upgraded to DR.
I know Naim electronics should be recapped after 15 years.
when a XPS is upgraded to DR, the time for recapping restarts from 0 or should I consider the initial production date?
thanks
Guido
The DR upgrade and recap were separate items. Naim recommended a recap at the same time as a DR upgrade, but it wasn’t mandatory
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The DR upgrade to the XPS in particular involves the replacement of pretty much the entire contents of the box, so I think you can take it that it has, in effect, had a full service/recap.
any official answer on the topic? or official recommendation?
Take a note of the serial number and then contact Naim support who should be able to tell you.
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Ask naim support. Be clear with your question. If you have a seriel number they will tell you what was done and when.
For a recommendation, find a 555dr. An early dr should be about £2500 to £2800. Add in £500 for Darran to do a service.
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Thanks Richard. I did not think about this possibility, as support keep tracks of service done in time
Naim keep records of in-house servicing. If you use a different authorised service agent (outside the UK) you would need to ask that agent if they have service records.
They are different service tasks so it was possible to have a DR upgrade without cap servicing etc. It is often true that they were both done simultaneously, though.
I bought a Hicap that was upgraded to DR before purchase. I was able to contact Naim and get the service details, so I could confirm that it was both serviced and upgraded simultaneously.
I don’t now if they have records if it is done outside of Naim e.g. Class A in Sheffield. I have a NAC202 that was serviced by them but I got their invoice with the unit when I bought it used.
In 2021 Naim HQ replied me this on XPS/DR upgrade. So from the date of DR you have everything inside it changed except the transformer. It is more or less a new unit.
“Nor we nor our colleagues in Germany would carry out a service when updating an XPS to DR - during the update process, we pretty much replace the entire inside of the unit (save the toroidal transformer) so effectively - there is nothing left to service.”
The same I was told from the XPS seller, this goes in the same direction. thx!
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i asked naim support a couple of months ago if they knew whether my DRed XPS (DRed in 2016) had been serviced when it was DRed, and they answered:
"Thank you for reaching out.
Unfortunately, I can confirm that a full service was not included with the DR upgrade at this time. The DR upgrade only included a full service in 2021 and 2022, before the upgrade service was discontinued."
Which is not as helpful as the response Blackbird got.
I replied to them enquiring what the cost to have a service would be, and they came back with:
“I can confirm that a full service would be 399, which includes all parts, labor, and return shipping from us to your retailer. Our current turnaround time is 3-4 weeks.”
Naim have no access to Class A records and vice- versa as far as i know. You need to contact each to find out what, if anything they did. Buy they do reply and tell you what they did.
If Naim can’t confirm, a definitive way to tell is to ask the seller to open the case and look at the date code on the power supply caps. All BMC/Kemet caps have a date code.
Not on an XPS, as I mentioned above, there’s effectively nothing left to service as it’s all changed out during the DR upgrade.
In the UK, DR upgrades were only carried out by Naim in house service dept.
So it seems but I don’t have one or ever had one serviced or upgraded. However, it seems also from kwhitmarsh what you say may not always have been the case.
I have units both upgraded and serviced at Naim as I said but also units serviced (again as I said) by Class A and as mentioned I do not know if those are also recorded at Naim, probably not.
I enquired with Naim with a Hicap upgraded to DR as I mentioned above and receive a full answer but I have had no need to ask Class A as I had the invoice/receipt from them but I am sure they would tell you if asked.
Inside an XPS, there is really 4 functional areas, transformer, rectifier’s, capacitor board and then the separate DR boards. I would assume that the DR update would only replace the last area.
Does anyone know how to date caps from the codes on them?
These are images of the caps inside my XPS (naim serial number dates manufacture 2004, confirm DRed in 2016)
I don’t think Kemet were ever used by Naim so I suspect this has been serviced ‘elsewhere’.
