The Uniti Qute had a LOUDNESS control (by many seen as the worst devil in the world of audio), and the world did not collapse so giving people a choice of some sort of tone control or few versions of ‘Naim signature sound’ should not capsize Naim believes. Same goes with the display – giving customers an option what they want to see on it should not hurt.
Its all about sound… but also about features and flexibility, these days.
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Naim NACs from the 12 to the 552 have had no tone controls by design. Tone controls in the analogue domain are a bad idea.
I do have a 1950s radio with tone controls - a quick tweak and it betters a 500 system 
I kind of struggle to reconcile that with the 470pF input capacitance on the SN3. That will severely alter the frequency response of most (all?) cartridges, and that’s even without accounting for the 100-150pF that the tonearm and cabling will add to that. Realistically it’s 570pF - 630pF we’re talking about.
I just did a quick check of a few popular MM/MI cartridges by Nagaoka, Ortofon and Audio Technica. Recommended capacitance ranges from (less than) 100pF to about 300pF. None I checked list anything higher as acceptable. So a SN3 based setup will provide between double and six times more than what’s recommended.
Assuming the 470pF is not a typo, this can only mean two things:
- Naim have released a product with a badly engineered phono stage
- Naim chose to alter the frequency response and not “deliver authentic sound”
I don’t believe it’s the former, so for me that leaves the second.
Out of interest, could you share which cartridges Naim used during the design?
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I think you’re getting confused about how the Supernait 3 phono stage actually works. These, with in-depth insight from our Technical Director, should clarify things:
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Thanks for the links. I’ll read them in more detail later, but a quick glance didn’t show anything to contradict my conclusion above.
But I did find something that seems to support it:
To be clear, this is not criticism. We all love Naim, it’s why we’re here, and we do trust them to produce good sounding products. I wouldn’t have bought otherwise.
I was just pointing out that you can’t quite obviously alter the sound while at the same time claiming you don’t.
470pF is in line with Naim’s tradition - the Stageline N and N phono boards - as well as many others out there, past and present.
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As i’ve made clear, there’s a world of difference between compensatory changes and offering tone controls on products. Read those reviews (and many, many others) - natural sound is the result.
It might very well sound great (and knowing Naim it likely does), but with a load over 470pF for MM, it won’t be “natural”. At least not with any cart I’m aware of.
That’s really interesting. Do you know which cartridges are used in the development process in the past and/or present?
Have you heard one, out of interest?
IIRC, in the past Naim usually used Supex and A-T (and derived) MM carts. Personally, I loved the Supex SM100.
I don’t know what is currently used.
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Unfortunately not.
I briefly considered a StageLine when I was looking, but as it would require getting a HiCap (I have a Uniti, so no existing PS) as well it would take it too far above my budget. And at that point I’d rather not tempt myself. I’m guessing it’s aimed at people who already own separates including the PS.
Excuse my ignorance since i really don’t know this, but is Naim gear generally intended to sound neutral? I have heard about the “Naim sound” which implies a certain tonal colour, does this mean that a natural (Naim) sound is different to a neutral sound? If they are different, what is the difference in tonal qualities?
And does this still apply to the digital era in a similar way as to the analog era?
Perhaps this belongs in a separate thread…
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I don’t see how this necessarily implies undue coloration. The frequency responses are flat as they should be. I understand the Naim sound to have the difficult-to-pinpoint properties of PRaT, which is not related to coloration/frequency-response
Got it!
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Pace, Rhythm, and Timing
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t “PRaT” related to a high slew rate and therefore to clean frequency response?
Who knows, PRaT is something from the past, maybe a marketing buzz word, as far as I recall & also as understood by most others, its always meant Pace Rhythm & Timing.
What I meant is that to the best of my knowledge it’s what people associate with “the Naim sound”, rather than “the Naim sound” being understood as some kind of un-neutral coloration.
You’re proabably right.