I hear yah and are enjoying a Nova as my main system. I have still have my A60 too, it’s enjoying a new life as a headphone amp off a Pre-loved Uniti2 in the media room.
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The problem with one box solutions and active speakers and so forth is threefold:
- You cannot gradually upgrade to the system you want. It’s a big initial outlay.
- Similar to the above, once you have a really top class single box system, the next (real) upgrade entails starting from scratch.
- The last reason greatly depends on whether you believe that correct isolation can really be achieved in a single box. Either you do and therefore there is no sound quality argument for multi box hifi. Or you don’t and all things being equal, a single box will be outperformed by multi boxes at the same price point.
For me, all 3 are valid. I do love my UQ2. I love a multi box system even more.
Hypothetically, if Naim decided they were not big enough to survive by sticking to their original design philosophy, I’d listen real hard to alternatives that were more committed to separates. Before Naim I had Linn and when I got back into hifi after a long break, Linn was clearly laying a roadmap where separates were falling by the wayside. It was a road I could just not travel down and I left them behind.
The great analogue pre and outboard PS has a role to play for me. And I use just one source. And it is digital.
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Another way to look at the single box issue, is the multi system approach. If you want to go beyond a single box that you have, move it into a second system and so on. Or add at the top of your system and move on anything you don’t want to keep. Naim seems to hold it’s value, so trading up works for single boxes to, except for borders like me…
To me, separating stages of amplification made sense when starting from very low level signals: splitting into pre and power simplifies design where it is necessary to avoid the low level signals being affected by the high level (and even more so if power supplies are remote).
But if sources universally are high level, then the argument goes away, and any necessary buffer circuits etc could be built into the power amp box with no detriment, so an integrated for high level sources only then makes sense, maybe calling it the main amplifier. Any low level sources, like vinyl, could have a preamp, but maybe with a different (and simpler) approach to its output stages, designed to feed the same main amp inputs as digital sources, and not needing volume control.
The main amp would cost a bit more than a traditional power amp, but far less than a pre+power, while the new type pre fir low level sources would be a little cheaper than a current ore. For people with digital only there would be a cost saving, over either integrated or traditional+pre.
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Ideally you’d buy a system that would last you for years with no need to upgrade. I haven’t done that, but wish I had.
If you do want to upgrade then you part exchange the box you have. You may lose money so doing and conclude no upgrade required.
With a single box you don’t have lots of cables to degrade the sound or have to worry about multiple shelves and hopefully the manufacturer has carefully isolated and shielded components as necessary.
You end up with a nice
Shame I didn’t do it and ended up with multiple boxes (no pre though)
Nope. The pre-amp is not a thing of the past. At least not to my ears, and boy did I want it to be (unnecessary that is)!
Apologies to @Richard.Dane who told me straight out not to connect the NDX 2 straight into a power amp. He was dead right. Haven’t tried the 252, so I can’t speak to that, but I’ve had my new PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium hooked up for five hours now and it’s an astonishing difference.
I had suspected the lack of preamp was the reason I wasn’t enjoying orchestral works as much as before. Also why some pieces seemed distant, as thought at the end of a tunnel. All that’s gone now.
Astonishingly, the width of the soundstage is improbably large. At risk of sounding like one of those reviewers, the orchestra extends past the edges of my speakers. Not sure how that works! It’s really something.
I’m in love.
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i am very glad for you Perizoqui. So the prima luna works well too with naim amp. No hum, tubes rush? dead silent?
I read that the prima luna are made in China but with the standards of europe, all the components are european and of high quality. It would cost twice probably if not assembled in China. Very good discovery!
No hum, no tube rush. If I place my ear up to the speaker with the preamp at half max, I hear absolutely nothing.
They are made in China, which really bothered me. Indeed I even ruled them out initially. But when I watched the youtube videos from Upscale Audio I hesitated. The build quality is extraordinary, the components are actually mostly European. So it’s a flip of most European and American HiFi, which is assembled in Europe and the US from mostly Asian components. In the end I think it’s a wash.
I spent the first hour or two casually listening to music. The next hour or so listening to my HiFi, trying well known tracks from classical to pop to vocal jazz, all the usual crap. Now I’m just listening to Dvorak’s Piano Quintet (Op. 81 - Richter, Borodin). It’s so lovely. I’m breathless. There may be, I’m sure there are, other systems that sound better. But I don’t care, this is the best I’ve ever had. I’m joining the Have you stopped upgrading thread 
.
And I’m told these things run in over the first 100 or so hours… so it’s going to get better?!
I’m going to try out the REW correction in roon and see what it tells me about placement and possible treatments, but I think I’m done.
So sweet the sound. Plaintiff violin, trickling piano, it’s just astonishing. If the NDX 2 was a 20% improvement on the Classé DAC, and the 300 a 100% improvement on the McIntosh power amp that preceeded it, adding the PrimaLuna is 200%. Of course the NDX 2 gets some of the credit for that (how much I don’t know), since I wasn’t doing it justice before. Regardless, the new source (NDX 2 + PrimaLuna) are easily the best thing I’ve ever done to my HiFi. More than the 300, possibly more than going from the Thiel’s to the Sopra IIs.
No need for cosy fireplace!
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very good news! it will improve without hesitation. It’s a shame that naim is always banging that naim amps should go with naim pre only.
My combo and now yours prove the contrary.
Tubes give some magic and realism that transistor can’t give. You have now a combo of heaven! naim prat and drive with openness and true tone colors of music. Well done!
You can add later, if you want, a better power cord and some nos tubes to enhance the musicality of your pre. But no rush… the magic is already here.
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i want to add: tubes pre really need some good stand , like not very expensive isoacoustics gaia couplers , on dedicated shelf. Like turntables, tubes pre are very sensitive to that.
Enjoy
That’s a lovely looking combo.
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Ahh see. That, as I said, depends on one believing the last reason related to isolation or not.
I’d certainly agree that multi boxes are on the wrong side of diminishing returns. But I’ve yet to hear something that makes them irrelevant for the purist in terms of audible improvement.
Each person places value on different things. And luckily the market is diverse enough to cater to that. The modern drive to downscale due to smaller (and invreasingly rented) living spaces makes a smaller box count attractive for the music lover. But if you already decided that any box will go on a rack, then 1 box or 5, the floor space is unchanged. It then really comes down to the other factors.
All the one box systems I’ve heard have been “good for one box”. That includes my UQ2. And I am space restricted in that room. Otherwise I might have gone for dedicated separates within the same budget.
Ditching the pre, or even the whole external amplification chain, may be valid for some. It may even be valid for an owner of a multi box separates system in the context of another room. But as an absolute… ? Yeah I don’t buy that there is no place for a pre for one second. I’ve heard too much of what a decent preamp does (with my one digital source even) to go back.
So I’ve heard. I built my stand myself. Laminated bamboo shelves, suspended from the top by rubber gaskets on metal rods. The shelves don’t come in contact with the rods, just the rubber gaskets. The whole rig is attached only to the corner frame of the house, driven into the foundation. The spiral staircase looks like it touches, but it doesn’t. So I think the HiFi is quite free from vibrations. Anyway, it’s the best I can do. Very similar to what we do for atomic force microscopes in the lab, minus the air cushion which I couldn’t afford at home.
seems very good. I said you that because, on your photo, the prima seemed to stand on your ndx2. I probably have not seen clearly.
perizoqui
I am so glad that you found the preamp necessary. I did this experiment with my ND555 about 2 weeks back and reported findings here. The difference was large. Wider soundstage, sound beyond the edges of the speakers, but the big difference was the hall ambiance and air around the instruments. Thank you Richard Dane for keeping us on track on this issue.
Now the 64$ question. Not an EE (Aero Astro Eng), so am expected to interface and talk the language with ME and EE’s, but not make a living that way. I researched some on volume controls. After realizing that the ND555 has only 100 steps of volume adjust, which is like 9 bits, perhaps this collapses the resolution that is supplied to the amp. Does this mean that thru the adjustable volume control my ND555 is giving me the equivalent of 24 less 9 = 15 bits of resolution? Its not completely clear, and there are several ways to do a digital volume control, but nothing I read suggested that they completely work. Of course, a good potentiometer is also very expensive and has its flaws. So now its good, the ear test, and some of the technical background agree.
I am so glad that this is not just tossed on the too hard pile (for me saying that different ears in different rooms can give different results is kind a like kissing your sister).
Bailyhill
Have you heard Chord DAVE? Did it for me, but maybe not for others. I won’t be buying an expensive pre for my digital replay, but if others have found a pre that’s ideal for them then that’s excellent news.
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The 100 steps of the attenuator aren’t linear: they approximate a lin-log curve.