Yes, I already contacted my supplying dealer and he came over to my place to have a listen, and then suggested I should bring the 282 to his shop so he can try it with his own set up to confirm. However, I had hoped he’d bring round his own demo unit to my place - as per my suggestion - so we could then assess any hiss in the context of my speakers and system, but hey-ho, he chose otherwise. I would like to stick with the 282 since the system does sound promising as it gradually runs in, however, this slightly intrusive faint hiss during quieter passages is playing on my mind - if nothing else!!
Sounds completely normal to me.
My first naim pre-power combo hissed like mad so quiet listening with quiet instruments like classical guitar was almost unbearable . So I sold them and got a Cyrus VS8 which I had for 10 years and sounded great and…no hiss! To hear that this is still considered normal is disappointing. My uniti star doesn’t hiss, so why do naim separates still suffer from this annoying problem? So much for continuous development!
hi Music4all – a faint hiss from the speakers is a known thing with Naim, and generally nothing to worry about. that said, with low-sensitivity speakers it’s odd that you can hear much hiss from 3m away. do you have a tomb-like level of quiet in your listening room?
(i live in New York City and the ambient noise level in my living room is way higher than anything emitted by the speakers when no music’s playing, so perhaps i’m not the best judge of these things.)
Hello, no it’s definitely not tomb level quite - how I wish - but the hiss is noticeable with my 85db sensitivity speakers from 3 meters away. I and others invited round confirmed they do hear it on quieter passages of music when the windows are closed and there is generally little - but not zero - other ambient noise. I’ve never had this problem in my listening room in the 20 years I have lived here, or when using other amplification with the same speakers. I swapped out the 282 with another Preamp going into the NAP 200 and there was total complete silence, even when a few inches away from the speakers. The general consensus appears to be that this is perhaps normal with Naim, therefore, the decision for me is do I live with this very faint level ‘fm radio’ like hiss, return to Naim for further investigation, or sling the 282 onto eBay and pick another brand for my daily music fix.
I have a 282 into 250 DR and certainly dont get anything like this. I live in the countryside and is deathly quite outside so either I am very lucky, deaf or your one needs looking at I would say.
This sounds like it should be measurable - can you get a reliable delta in measurements with an SPL meter to try and quantify this phenomenon?
Don’t give up – have this looked into by Naim.
I agree that you should persist in trying to resolve this problem, or rather, to persuade your dealer to do so. I too live in a quiet rural location and my 282 based system, like other Naim systems I’ve had, is barely audible when close to the speakers, and most definitely not audible over any music that’s playing.
Also, is your 282 powered by the 200? Maybe worth investigating whether the preamp PSU is causing this issue, but I’m just guessing here.
This really is one for your dealer, so I’m pleased you’ve got them involved. I’m sure they’d be very happy to take a listen and they will be in the best position to say if normal or not. Due to the high gain you do get a little bit of his with Naim pre-amps, and maybe that’s a worthwhile trade-off for the life they give the music. But if it’s too much for you and you want it totally hiss free then maybe the Naim just isn’t for you. Or else there’s a problem and the his really is excessive. Hopefully you’ll know soon and then you can see how you feel…
My 282 has sung beautifully since day 1
Yes there is an audible hiss from the speakers when no music is playing but when I play something the sound is clarity and dynamism - the hiss disappears.
Yes, it’s being powered by the 200. I also mentioned to a couple of Naim dealers if using a HICap might resolve/lesson the hiss, one advised not to be rash and throw more money at this “issue” but rather explore other avenues, and the other suggested swapping out for a 250 as the 200 might be struggling with the 85db speakers. This latter suggestion is likely incorrect because when I try another - non Naim -preamp - into the 200, there was absolutely no hiss, even a few centimetres away. I used to own a Nait XS integrated some years ago but never noticed any hiss during the 12 months or so I owned it. Funnily enough I remember a dealer telling me that the Naim Pre-Power amps sound very different to the integrated amps, now I know what they meant :-p
My 282 doesn’t hiss from more than 50cm away…but it did.
On the old forum I had a thread where a recent cable reorg caused noticable hiss and radio stations the be picked up that were audible in the next room with the door closed! Turns out a speaker cable that had been naughtily coiled, had been changed to Naim recommended zigzag configuration and then placed under the rack beneath the power amp. A huge amount of time was spent focusing on the 282 but it wasn’t the cause. Much blame was attributed because if disconnected from the power amp, the hiss and radio interference vanished. But of course that’s a red herring. Interference needs a full circuit to manifest. Different speaker cable dressing completely resolved it.
There could be something wrong with the 282, or it could be 101 other things. I’d definitely play with cable placement a bit. If interference is at play then moving speaker cables about would cause a noticeable change. Either way, it may help rule that out.
How loud (percentage wise?) are you turning up your preamp?
I can hear Hiss with nothing playing if I crank it like…50%, but when I play music on my system, I’m at like 15% up.
at 15% I can only hear hiss if I stick my head right by the speaker
the 1st thing I thought was, “what did your hi-fi reseller say?”
it could very well be cable management too.
your dealer should get his hands dirty on this install.
Well that would be throwing even more money at it, as a 250 isn’t exactly cheap, and you would then need the Hicap anyway. Both worthwhile upgrades, but in your position I would want to get to the bottom of the problem before trying to spend your way out of it.
I had a 282 connected to various amps via various PSU’s and never heard any hiss from the several different speakers I tried.
No hiss with my NAC 282 but I have the 250DR and Hicap DR connected to it instead of the NAP 200DR. It is dead quiet.
I had some hiss with the 202/200 non-DR but it is quite negligible.
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