Dunc,
You have a superb system. You went down 500 series route and it wasn’t for you.
It seems to me that you want 500 series mk2 to work for you!
Have you listened to statement amps at all?
Is that another option?
I have to say - the Statement system sounded absolutely fantastic playing the Hugh Masekela track. If I happened to win the pools I wouldn’t hesitate !
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Just the first 7 words of this sentence are all that you need to say, never add the remaining 10, just stick to the first 7, believe the first 7.
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I forgot to mention that originally I approached my dealer regarding the replacement of my 300DR (BMR) with a NAP 500 but he recommended the alternative that I took of 332/NC300 with NAP350.
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Further to this Jason Gould regards 300DR better than 250NC.
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So it seems Naim range can be judged via price hierachy. If you have 300DR should be better than 250NC. A 500DR should be better than 350NCs.
552DR better than 332 and 300NPX.
And so on. I hope this clears things up for everyone! Lol.
I know it’ subjective and NC is new sound but Naim reckon the prices are a good guide to quality differences in their set ups.
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It did indeed. The best I have ever heard from Statement.
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and as Richard pointed out Jas is as honest it gets in the Industry. Did you get to see the Statement sans outer case? Some piece of kit right?
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Lot’s of pics posted on Dan’s thread. S1 preamp is work of art. As is 500DR internals. Amazing kit.
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What record player do they use in the demos?
The 500 was for me Dan and loved it for years.
It was just that i didn’t find the nd555 was for me over the nds, as you know.
This opened the doors to other things and eventually all the naim went.
The new 500 series should be interesting and i hope a big inpovement.
As for statement, then it doesn’t really offer me much these days.
I dont need the power the Amp’s have, and would certainly spend my money on some lovely valve Amp’s that i love the sound off.
As for the S1, once again i don’t really need or want it, looked at that route years ago, and i obviously didn’t do it, so i certainly wouldn’t now.
It’s the new 500 series amp that i would be most interested in if anything. As i cannot see naim beating my vivaldi stack in my life time, so that rules that out, and i don’t really need a pre amp with my vivaldi kit, and i could be very very clever with my turntable if i want too, when the time comes.
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I reckon it’s like this. Once you go forwards you don’t go back!
You did the right thing for you!
New 500DR mk2 amp maybe 2 to 3 years bud from what I can gather.
Nothing concrete!
I too was lucky enough to be invited to Naim HQ. It was a good day with good company, including Dan and Harrison, Nigel and several other regulars – a pleasure to meet you all.
First, many thanks to all involved for the invitation, chat, hospitality and demonstrations. Messrs Raggett and Dane were particularly patient with me.
Second, I for one was more surprised than I should have been by how small an operation Naim still is. The expanded building is pretty full, but (if I remember what was said) there are still fewer than 150 employees, and everything relies on skilled individuals rather than a robot production line (which makes complete sense given the numbers of each item being made).
Third, we saw the team hard at work, servicing/ repairing boxes from 30+ years ago. I could sulk about what it costs to get boxes serviced now, just as I could sulk that they cannot somehow create new transports for my CDS2 or fix old ones without access to parts. However, if the department didn’t make a profit, I doubt that they or anyone would do the work, and 90% of those old boxes (and a lot of value in the s/h market) would quietly vanish.
I should probably be a bit more grateful every time I get something serviced or fixed. As others have said, looking after your customers as well as you can possibly can and with 100% honesty is far from naiive or a recipe for failure, and Naim looks a good example of that to me.
Fourth, several of us had had little or no experience of NC boxes. I have heard a lot of CB, olive, OC and OC DR boxes, but had never heard most NC boxes.
We all heard the same music over the same boxes, but that doesn’t mean exactly the same experience, preferences or priorities. That may well mean that comments from a few of us on what we heard and thought may be useful to people considering NC boxes, not least because (however brief and informal) this was effectively a listening panel, starting in the usual way with the most basic system and working up from there, with no reading each other’s notes and some listeners with very different tastes.
Throughout, we used Focal Scala Utopia speakers – as Dan says, they are pretty huge. The fact that I have literally never heard these speakers before makes comment on them of little use, as well as making other comparisons a bit harder, but they did seem impressive in many ways and plenty good enough to show what was going on elsewhere.
We also used the NC250 the whole time I was there. A nagging doubt that the speakers would have been ideally suited to 350s or a 500 never went away, though the NC 250 clearly has a lot more muscle than (say) an olive 250. That issue was addressed by swapping in 350s at the end, but sadly I had had to leave by then so I will be hoping for comment from others on that, so I am very interested in more comments on the 350s.
The next bit is my recollection of what I thought and heard. Others will doubtless disagree with at least some of it – please do chip in so that my comments are balanced by other views. Any errors are of course mine – apologies, but feel free to correct me.
We started with 222/250 only. It was good and would have little difficulty getting feet tapping in proper Naim fashion. However, even a brief recollection of the same harpsichord on my NDX2/XPSDR/52/SC/300DR suggested that the 222 was not perfect. It was not ultra detailed or easy to hear fine treble or drum rim sounds, reminding me more of a faster 82 or 282 than 52/252. There also seemed little difference between voices and every singer seemed to be standing in vaguely the same place.
Next we swapped the standard cable for Super Lumina version. To my old ears, the difference was not dramatic, but both deep bass and high treble were definitely a bit clearer so the sound appeared a bit more open.
Next we added a 300PS to 222. This made things much tighter across the frequency range, with materially faster edges, clearer lyrics and less sibilance. Timing and coherence were a good deal better, but it still wasn’t the last word in detail (or stereo image, as far as I could tell).
Next we swapped the 222 for 333 streamer and 332 pre-amp. This had considerably more detail and a quieter background and better distinction between different singers, but it certainly had no more boogie and seemed slightly less coherent – if you play a lot of (say) Zeppelin, this really is the wrong combination. On this limited hearing, I would probably take 333/332 over 222/300, but time could prove me wrong and I know that 1 or 2 heard what I heard and preferred 222/300. Both are compromises imho and sound like it.
Next we kept 333/332, but added a 300PS to the streamer. As one might hope, that sharply improved things, adding back much of the effortless coherence and timing - the areas that I thought the weaknesses of 332/333 when used without it. The result was sharply better than 222/300 with no obvious downside apart from cost and box count.
Next we added another 300PS for the 332 preamp. If anything, that had a more immediately obvious effect than the first PS - we seemed to be getting yet more detail and a bit more PRaT too.
It was suggested that a 300 probably has more effect on the overall SQ in a one-source system if used on the 333 than on the 332 (perhaps that option would show up the unadorned 333’s limitations?). However, with multiple sources, it was agreed that the 300 might well end up on the 332. In short, this is clearly close to 50/50, and any buyer will doubtless spend a little time swapping a couple of cables to try both versions for themselves.
To me, the superiority of 333/ 300PS/ 332/ 300PS over 333/332 or 222/300PS in real sound quality and enjoyment was big, while comparing 222/ 300PS to 333/ 332 was much more an issue of ‘different’ than of ‘better’.
While I have never heard 333/300/332/300 in my room with my speakers, I am confident from this session that I would find them competitive with my NDX2/ XPSDR/ 52/ SC. In some areas I would expect them to be noticeably better (top guesses would be quieter background, more detail, more punch, more treble control and better stereo image).
While admitting the weakness of my data, as well as my ears, I can extrapolate a bit here…
From what we heard, omitting the 300PS from the 333 has an even bigger impact than removing the XPSDR from my NDX2, but it’s much the same sort of change. My guess is that 333/ 332/ one 300PS (used with either) would beat NDX2/ 52 (or 252)/ SC, while also being slightly different in flavour. I would be a good deal less confident of 333/ 332/ one 300PS (on either box) being clearly preferable to NDX2/XPSDR/52/SC.
I would be very surprised if the unadorned 222 would be even close to competitive on SQ in my house in pretty much any area beyond convenience. Given the very different box count and cost, that seems fair enough.
On the other hand, in another system, I have ND5XS2/82/HC/250 (olive). I had envisaged getting the excellent Nova, but decided I wanted a bit more – which these deliver. With anything around that level, I expect that a NC 222/250 would mean a slightly different presentation but noticeably better overall, and that 222/300PS/NC250 would be a big overall upgrade over the above or for that matter NDX2/ 282/ HC/ 250DR.
All the above is from our ‘only’ using the NC250 power amp. Even without knowing the speakers we were using, I can certainly believe that it is more like a 300DR than a 250DR from the previous range. However, other amps, are available. Unfortunately, I had to dash off before we heard 333/300/332/300 with 350s instead of NC250, but I will be interested in any comments from those who stayed to the end.
Away from the test, there were some interesting views given by Jason, Mark and Richard over the course of several hours on OC versus NC. Given some of the cynical and perhaps discourteous comments on some threads (some along the lines of “They’ll say/ do anything to make a bit more profit”), I’d be interested in how the nay-sayers would explain away these: -
A. There was much discussion about 552 versus 332 – the actual topic of this thread. I specifically pointed out that one can apparently buy a 552 on eBay right now for under £8K, while two or three thousand more gets a fairly recent DR. Given that, would the Naim-ites present suggest buying 332 or 332/300 or 552 to someone purely interested in SQ per £ and happy to buy s/h?
The universal answer was 552. Of course, every person is entitled to their view and everyone should pick with their own ears. However, everyone there was confident that the 552 will be better for simple SQ for most ears/ systems/ preferences – and most there do not have 552s or work for Naim. Age, warranty, service periods and the risks of s/h purchases are all relevant, but even so…
B. In answer to a direct question, JG commented on how good the 300PS is, but with a limit. If you have an XPS on a digital source, for example, he was certain that the 300PS would be a worthwhile upgrade (with the right cables). However, the OC 555PS is better with everything from nDAC and NDX2 to CD555, so a swap would be a waste of money and very possibly a downgrade in SQ.
C. I mentioned the performance of the Superline, with the right power and Z-plug as a reason for me no to get interested yet by the NC option. All agreed that the Superline is too good for them to suggest I change for the NC option.
Does any of that clash horribly with what everyone else who was there thinks or remembers?
Finally, some years after getting my 52, I decided to upgrade my all olive system by swapping my old 250 for the 135s I had wanted for over 20 years. Apart from anything else, I knew I liked 135s and was unimpressed with the 300 I had heard. I was advised to try a 300DR (or a 500) with my 52 before buying 135s. My eyes suggested 135s, but my ears won & I got the 300DR. With hindsight, I should probably have had more patience and waited for a really cheap 500…
If I ever decide to spend more money changing things in Wimbledon again, I expect that it will be to change the 52 for a 552 and/ or change 300DR for a 500. Both would mean selling too, and the prospect of selling on eBay is an encouragement to inaction, but either looks a lot more affordable than it did. If the seller is a shop, I may even be able to compare 552 with new 332/300 and 500 to 350s, and I’ll be quite willing to find my initial view was wrong once again. Willing, but surprised…
Sorry about the length, and thanks again to all for the day.
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I love how the usual opinion is fact comes to the fore .
500 owners be happy with your kit it’s as good as it always was .
But there are simply facets of the new kit that trounce the old 500 kit . Years and years of technological progress ( and we are talking alot of years ) determine this .
If someone says they owned or long term demoed one against the other and preferred the new kit , I am afraid I have more faith in this than 500 owners spouting off that their kit is better.
Progress costs and also devalues what came before …that’s life .
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Or if the transit bolts fell out during shipping and the sprung suspension got knocked off its pins. This was the case with my 552 when I first got it, and it immediately inferior to the serviced 52 I had.
A trip back to set things right and the 552 came back outplaying the 52 in all subjective ways.
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Well, there was a Solstice present, looking as ornamental as usual. Does that count?
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Naim themselves are saying 500 series is better than 300 series. It is as clear as that!
Why would they say that if they didn’t believe in it. This isn’t 500 series owners saying it. It is Naim.
Know that. And let’s put this to bed finally.
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Know that …sorry I don’t appreciate that language , perhaps is language barrier .but that’s inappropriate Dan .
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Why is that? Please explain why “Know that” is inappropriate for you.
Because ‘know that’ is an instruction or an order. Rather than persuading someone to agree with you, it is telling them to agree with you
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