Hello everyone,
As is customary on forums, let me introduce myself: Laurent, 41 years old, from France.
My father recently passed away, leaving behind a genuine Hi-Fi system that I appreciate enormously.
I have several questions about the Naim components I inherited.
First, here’s what I have available:
SNAPS SN: 5925
NAC 72 SN: 70909
NAP 180 SN: 85867
Here are my questions:
- Each component has a different look, and I’d like your help figuring out which era they belong to: the NAP 180 seems to be from the Olive series, while the SNAPS clearly looks older, but the casing doesn’t have a chrome trim strip on the front panel (though it does have one on the back panel) — could the casing have been disassembled and reassembled upside down/backwards?
The NAC 72 is black in color, but has the NAIM logo backlit in green, like the NAP 180… I feel a bit lost in all this!
-
When powering on, I hear a slight hiss for a few seconds — is this normal? Should I have one of the units “serviced” (and if so, which one?), or is this normal operation?
-
I currently have a Marantz NR1510 amp that lets me enjoy a 5.1 system with in-wall speakers (4x Focal 100 IW6, 1x Focal 100 IWLCR5 as center channel, and an SVS SB-1000 subwoofer). I can’t quite make sense of the current NAIM lineup — could I add components to what I already have in order to replace my Marantz with a NAIM 5.1 system? If so, which model references would I need?
Thanks for your clarifications,
Best regards,
Laurent.
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Welcome to the forum Laurent. Sorry to hear you recently lost your father.
Getting to the system, the SNAPS is from the “Chrome Bumper” period and sounds as though it has had its sleeve reversed so the linished edge faces to the rear. It’s easy enough to turn it around, just be careful not to catch the fascia edge as they can get brittle with age.
The NAC72 and NAP180 are from the Olive period. The NAC72 appears to have had a non-standard replacement source selection knob fitted.
Sometimes a bit of a buzz at power up can indicate the need for a service. Power amp and power supply are usually the ones most in need due to the big reservoir caps.
You could integrate the Naim system into the 5.1 system - the Naim taking over the main front L+R channels, however the NAC72 does not have a dedicated unity gain AV input, which makes things a bit less convenient as you would need to then set the volume level on the NAC72 every Time you wanted to run the system in 5.1. Later Naim pre-amps from the Classic period onwards have dedicated AV unity gain inputs to make it easy to integrate into AV systems.
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Hello Richard,
Thanx for all this informations.
Indeed my actual setup with marantz is as you proposed, and the “preamp” output of my marrantz is in synch with the “general” volume of the marantz himself, making the control smooth.
So there is no Naim solution to manage 5.1 from A to Z ?
Indeed ths Knob broke, and the store changed it with a non standard one as they didn’t have a Naim one back in the days, you catch it.
So the NAC is Olive even if the “front face” is black ? When comparing to the amplifier, the amp is slightly “ dark green/brown”
Naim olives are not all the same exact colour. Some are more grey and some are more green.
If at some point you want to improve things, an olive Hicap is much better than the snaps. It will give a dual rail power supply to the 72, getting the best from it. It will also match visually.
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