NAC252 Isolation feet

Improvement with every box. Worth reading some of the reviews and also some videos online. Also use GAIA feet under my 804D3s and similar impact.

@AJK here’s the positioning I’ve been able to gain agreement for.

The power supplies and power amp are inside a cabinet and I generally have the door closed, I’ve removed the back for ventilation, everything is remaining really cool.

It’s actually sounding stunning now, I’m thinking the SQ issues may just have been because it hadnt warmed up, but I am interested to hear about isolation, etc. And @Crispy they look awesome…

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Thanks Carlstone. Room looks great and for me its always nice to see some black boxes.

IMHO I get locked into tweaking looking for an easy improvement but I always go back to basics. Other members have rightly told me I should just get a Fraim but it’s such a cost.

From other threads inconsistent SQ through warm up or fluctuations in power supply or some other reason are a constant problem. I should learn to leave it for a day but cant resist adjusting cables and box positions etc etc.

Glad you’ve got everything working. Tweakitus is an underlying condition so I cant help wondering if SQ would be better if you moved the boxes to the opposite side of the unit with a bigger gap between them.

I have got to get help!!

Thanks AJK, yeah now everything is warmed up and sounding great, I’m less inclined to tweak as I know it can be so subjective… I must leave as is and enjoy the system for a while :grinning:

Yes, you should get a Fraim. Naim boxes look daft on those silver feet and remember the old saying, you can’t polish a turd. Do it right and say goodbye to tweakery.

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I was happy with a CB system from 1994 to 2015 when I added a 250 DR. End of 2019 I decided to renew and my dealer suggested I check out the forum to get up to date.

Biggest mistake ever. Ignorance is bliss.

(No prize for the first person to mention I must be a very happy man)

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But you can roll it in glitter

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Naim gear without a Fraim is hardly a turd! It’s awesome precision hi-fi, without having had ££££s spent on the rack…

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I agree, I know it’s not cheap, but the 252 really needs to sit on its own Fraim shelf to sound anywhere near its best. I wrote about this on the old forum and how particularly sensitive my 252 was to support, far more so than my previous 282.

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I have to agree also having bought a full Fraim for my modest Supernait2, NDX2 and HiCapDR following the advice of other users. Experiencing what it brings first hand. In my mind this is a no brainier. Especially at 282/252 level and above. :+1:t2:

In hindsight, a high quality rack and building from the ground up is the fundamentals of the whole system.

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well tried the QPlus out inc the reference level ones under the feet of naim gear that sits on my quadraspire SVT bamboo rack

main reason for this was to see if brought any gain to my NAC282 that sits on the second shelf (NDS takes pride of place on a floating top shelf with the brass upgrade spikes)

really glad i did a home demo as i did not like what the QPlus feet did in this instance and found the naim gear sounded best just sat on the rack, especially considering the QPlus reference are £900 for 4 :open_mouth: (which i could get 3 bamboo SVT shelves with feet)

outcome being once kids are out of my listening/their play room i will get shot of the T.V and get extra SVT shelves and split my gear over 2 racks which i feel would be a better overall gain on testing so far

so as ever highly recommend home demo/trying first

cheers

mat

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I’d certainly add a +1 to the Fraim approach here and reiterate my previous comments. Your room does look fab but given your level of investment in equipment it’s important to factor in the needs of the system as a whole and at the level of equipment that you have that means ensuring the equipment is sited appropriately and noise within the system is managed and kept to a minimum within the design of the system connectivity and power supplies. It’s tricky to tell from the pictures you shared but you could for example put a Fraim rack in the corner where the tall black lamp is or on the opposite side as one option if you wanted to keep the white AV unit in place. You could also get a narrower AV unit and put a Fraim rack beneath the TV as well.
I think if you want to get the absolute best out of the equipment you have this is the best path forwards, adding isolation feet will be a compromise and only go some way to getting the best from what you have.
Hope you find a solution that meets with family approval anyway, appreciate that can be challenging at times. How you have it spaced apart now will certainly help, probably worth putting some more space between the source and preamp as well given the internal power supply of your NDX2 is on the right behind the display unit bringing it close to the sensitive internals of your NAC. Keep an eye on the cabling as well and ensure that is free hanging and not touching other cabling in particular speaker and power cables touching interconnects or cables looping on themselves.

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Great feedback, thank you. I had actually suggested a Fraim in the corner to my wife, but she isn’t sold on the idea yet… I think the Fraim will be a long term plan, may require a house extension or move and a dedicated music room!

Thanks again for the advice, I’ll save £££s by not going for isolation feet, and just enjoy the system as is until ‘optimal’ is possible :slight_smile:

Unless Naim are frankly incompetent designers I find it striking that they don’t fit fancy feet on their equipment. Surely if there was a performance advantage to be gained from what must be a cost effective manufacturing exercise (given that they would be making them at scale) Naim would design their own.
That they don’t is somewhat telling IMO…

Agreed! The feet on the ND555 are different from those on my SN3, so I am sure Naim understand that these things do make a difference, but when designing a set of products that are going to be used in a range of different situations, I am sure practicality and business pragmatism are also contributing factors.
Naim already admit (I believe Richard mentioned this before?) that glass wasn’t the optimal material to stand their products on, but that once cost and performance were taken into consideration, glass was the best compromise for Fraim. I remember certain products, especially Naim CD players sounded better on wood and I think Naim found a metal platform was best, but it was hard to engineer a flat surface at reasonable cost.
As a Fraim owner of the past, I can say it’s a great stand, but having looked at it for a number of years I realised I just don’t like the way it looks, so I needed to look at alternatives.

In a sense you could argue that Naim do design fancy feet for their gear. Fraim.

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