@iliria Over the years I have compiled a spreadsheet with the history of the Naim products, as well as their prices, using whatever information I could get my hands on. I have already shared it in the past and you can download it from here: https://gofile.io/d/ExEWv2
You can see more visually the progression of the different models, especially in the early years. The price-lists also give an indication of the relative performance of items.
@Richard.Dane: According the Naim website, the Axent and Access loudspeakers were discontinued in 2008. However they had already disappeared from the price-lists in 2006. Any way to check this discrepancy?
It’s probably because, even after the Axent and Axess were officially discontinued, Naim still held stock of cabinets and component parts and were able to supply to special order for at least a year or two more. Neither of them exactly flew out of the gates of the factory…
Interesting document you have there. I was surprised to see that the DAC in the ND5 XS2 is the same as the DAC-V1. I sort of assumed that the DAC-V1 might be an upgrade for me sometime in the future, but this finding doesn’t suggest the uplift will be much, and the uplift will be more about the output stage of the DAC-V1 and not the DAC itself.
As a long time V1 user, imo it’s all about the USB input - if you aren’t using that then I would probably look elsewhere. That said, it’s a great piece of kit and as I’ve said elsewhere on this forum, any improvements I make preceding it the V1 takes in stride.
I remember trips to my local dealer here and seeing Naim gear and clueless what all of these (higher priced) black boxes did, many with no knobs on the front! Finally my friend who worked there convinced me to pick up a used Naim 5i and CD5i and so glad I did. Before that hifi was merely a matter of replay - making noise come out the speakers, the bigger the better, mostly to get the party started right - and after that was when my real journey into listening to actual music began.
That is spot on. What I am trying to work out is how good the Nova is as a preamp compared to the other dedicated preamps. I am trying to void getting rid of the Nova since I know that I would get a lot less than it’s worth if I traded it in.
I agree, my best bet is to find a dealer and test the 250dr against the Nova and also test the 250dr+Nova against 250dr+preamp. I might include a TT in the equation in order to hear the difference between digital and analogue.
I might even give 300dr a go as well since I dont believe in gradual upgrades as in my belief all they do is bleed money. Better to go for the top from the start and you’re a winner.
My experience with a Superuniti (predecessor to the Nova) was that when upgrading to separates, by far the biggest step up was the preamp upgrade, and I strongly suspect you will find the same with your Nova.
Naim have always gone to great lengths to put their preamps in a separate box - not even its power supply is allowed in there - which tells you something about the benefits of isolating it from other electronics. The Nova is a very crowded box, and although it does sound good, its weaknesses will be exposed as you add more revealing boxes downstream.
Managed to download it. Thank you very much. Apparently the issue was due to my broadband provider automatically filtering out file sharing websites. I have contacted their customer service and the filters were taken off.
That is a very thorough list. Thank you for your effort. It is interesting to see that the price of the NAPs has pretty much doubled in 18 years.
I remember reading somewhere here that the amp need a service every so often? Does anyone know if they have to have a service and if so hw often and at what price?
It is compounded already, average inflation was 2.9% according to the BoE, so to get to 66.6% in 18 years they have compounded it. (I tend to use the site when watching/reading historical fiction to find out whether sums mentioned are large or not.)
Naim recommend a service generally every 10-12 years, a bit longer for 500 series. Not just for amps. It’s just to make sure that everything is up to Naim specs, and they also perform updates if any happened to the model in the meantime. There are several threads you can find by searching for “service”
To be clear, need of service is not special to Naim. Electronics degrade with time, in particular capacitors. It’s just that Naim actually takes care of older devices and offer this service. (Other manufacturers do as well of course, but not all - and with Naim you can hope that they will actually be still around in decades).
