DR upgrades

Haha. And I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning. Impressive.

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Thanks for that, FZ.

I won’t bother Richard, as he (unlike Harry Potter) doesn’t have a magic wand that would upgrade my amps for me!

Don’t worry, DR upgrade was never offered anyway for olive units.

I find the whole DR thing confusing. If it produced a performance upgrade, why was it not offered across the range, and why was it stopped?

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Because it was a redesign of main boards. Like I said, a 250.2 and a 250dr share nothing in common beyond the power supply and case. If you look at pictures of the inside you see that dr isn’t a tweaked bit, it’s a new amp

To do a 135dr they’d have to go back and design a new monoblock called a 135. It would be a 135 in name only.

Which is basically what a new NAP350 is; a monoblock with dr technology.

As mentiontion, parts availability was slim and new amps took priority. Worth noting that the new NC range uses significantly different parts than the OC range because some things like the type of capacitors used up to now have just become unavailable in sufficient quantity

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Here’s a thread all about the cessation of DR upgrades to compatible boxes.

Richard quoted the following from the dealer communication

Our acclaimed Discrete Regulator Technology was first introduced in 2012, and features across a range of products from power supplies and amplifiers, up to our flagship Statement system.

Since its introduction, and in keeping with an ongoing commitment to the sustainability of Naim hi-fi, we have offered upgrades to the DR spec, from previous, non-DR versions of Classic and 500 series products.

Due to ongoing supply chain challenges, and significant shortages of key components, we have taken the decision to discontinue this service, both in the form of in-house Naim Service performed DR upgrade and DR upgrade kits which can be purchased and installed by our partner service centres.

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So much for always going forward, always improving!

You’re just an old curmudgeon who complains about everything even when you’ve been given clear and adequate answers.

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The last price to DR a Hicap was £1000, which made it cheaper to sell the old one and buy a new HicapDR. There would likely be further costs to DR older (olive and chrome bumper) units where different components were mounted in different cases. That makes it pretty pointless to my mind, plus you are altering a piece of vintage kit which some prefer to Classic equivalents. Newer doesn’t automatically mean better.
The upgrade scheme was also unpopular with dealers as it was twice as much work as a new sale to ship a box to Naim as well as receiving it, and they made no profit from it.

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And you are thoroughly unpleasant!

The bear that you show is well-matched to your disposition.

Your posts suggest that I am right and sometimes the truth can sting…:smirk:

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There’s something in the water today. Why is no one getting along?

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January blues probably. :frowning:

There’s something in the water today.

Obviously not a good single malt…. Dry January :joy:

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I have a feeling that when the DR upgrades were first announced, the cost was a smaller proportion of the new price, but may have misremembered. I had my HC “done” as soon as they became available. It was used with a SN1 at the time and its effect on the sound was as good as a box upgrade to my ears.

Roger

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Most people are… :smiley:

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If DR parts are difficult to source, does that imply that future servicing of DR models is compromised?

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Good point!

In the thread I linked above there was never any mention of servicing DR kit being a problem. Nor do I recall it coming up since. That’s no guarantee obviously. I doubt the relatively generic component types on the DR boards are likely to suffer the shortages/EOL issues like streaming boards, or CD mechanisms though. Other opinions are likely available

I too was disappointed to find my olive NAP 250s could not be upgraded a few years ago.

Maybe it was a case of boards designed for newer models wouldn’t fit or simply wouldn’t work due to spec changes but it does seem something of a missed opportunity.