Nac 82

Nac 82 vs 282?

Apart from the casing/controls what are the main differences?

I looked into this a while ago and was unconvinced at the so called ā€œimprovementsā€. I think itā€™s a reboxing to fit the new look. Had our 82 completely serviced and updated with the new pots mod. Itā€™s staying.

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Some will say the 82 is better than the 282. Iā€™ve never heard either.
But then there are many that have little love for the 282.
Value wise? Proberly an easier question to answer i expect. By those who have heard/owned both.

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I have heard them side by side, and I thought the differences were slight, with the 282 providing slightly more detail, slightly less warmth and better sound staging. If the 282 scored 100, the 82 scored a 95. The 82 was all the more impressive since it had been in the trunk of my car, in winter, for a week with no prior warmup before the comparison.

(The dealer and his minion were making faces and acting like they were suppressing laughs at the supposed magnitude of the difference. I never went back, and he is out of business.)

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I used to have a 82/180 (followed by a 250)/hicap and currently have the 282/200/hicap. To my ears there is quite a difference in the presentation between these amp combinations. Unfortunately, I compared all of the amps quite a long time ago and I canā€™t really remember how much of this difference can be attributed to the pre-amp and how much to the power-amp.

The 82/180 has a more forward sound than the 282/200. With the 82/180 the soundstage is less open and the vocals are further forward. This combination also seemed to have more ā€˜paceā€™ to it than the 282/200. I changed because I preferred the less forward and more open sound of the 282/200. I donā€™t think one combination is necessarily better than the other. The guy that bought the 82/250 off me had just sold his 200 because he missed the olive amps that he had previously owned and felt that the 200 no longer possessed that ā€˜Naim soundā€™.

I have an 82 in my basement that I suspect has never been serviced and when compared to a 13 year old 282, not serviced I found the 82 making instruments sound mor like real instruments but att the same time givning more listening fatigue. This was with the same napsc (from 282) and Hicap dr. Now the 282 is serviced it sounds so much better than before I havenā€™t even bothered comparing. So I donā€™t know how the old 82 would fare against a serviced 282.

As always its about system balance, maybe a bit forward into a slightly warm 250 and SBLs is what that does. Sounds brilliant

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That sort of mirrors my thoughts comparing a 52 with a 252 but I preferred the presentation of the olive version, it just had more bite and aggression somehow which I suppose suited rock music, I might feel different if I listened to classical more than I do.

It can always be tuned with different speakers etc

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