NAC 272 with XP5-XS Power Supply

I have the opportunity to acquire an XP5-XS for my NAC 272 at a fair price. What if any benefits will I obtain? My power amp is the 250DR. Thanks!

I say no. I was an owner of 272/xpsdr/250dr and wish I would have saved the cash and bought XPSDR.

Did you do any direct comparisons between the vanilla 272 & with the XP5XS? I haven’t myself, but I would think there must be some minor improvements owing to the fact that the power supplies are double regulated using the XP5.

Regards
Neil.

I haven’t. My point was I thought the money spent on XPSDR was not worth it compared to 272/250. Not that much of an improvement.

I see, so you didn’t think that any PSU upgrade on the 272 was worth it?

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@RDSChicago Worth bearing in mind that the unit could be up to nine years old and might be in need of a service.

I’m sorry, I cannot answer your specific question.

@HiFiman bought an xp5xs for his 272 iirc and said it made a really good upgrade

Presumably cause it switched off the internal psu as well as…

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I tried an XPSDR on mine and was underwhelmed by it altho it did bring a bit of an improvement. The move up to a 555DR was a huge leap; the consensus on here on what is a widely discussed topic is that a 272 really comes alive with a 555 and that the increase from XPSDR to 555 is bigger than none to XPSDR.

The XP5-XS is outside of my experience so I can’t comment on that.

For the price of XPSDR I do not think it’s worth it.

I concur with others , 272 really gets very good when partnered with 555, stand-alone is just average and XPSDR doesn’t add that much considered the expense.
Any separate source instead gets enormous benefits with pretty any PSUs and give so much more.

I found an XPSDR to be a very significant upgrade over the bare 272, and worth the cost in relative terms, but there is rarely a consensus on the forum over such matters.

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