I don’t know about you but this thread is making me feel old 
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Mine!
Serviced a couple of years ago for the first time in their history, and I have them since the late 1980’s, and there is just one tiny nick in the case that I have no idea how it happened, otherwise unmarked condition (see a few entries earlier).
Used every day…
Here is the front, a little dusty…
5 tractor wheels…not enough for some though!
Camera distorts, the frame is square and level.
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They can be fitted with MC boards. I can’t recall which boards are in which but I have plenty of spare sets.
My NAC62 has K boards (sticker on rear of NAC62 since fallen off)…NA323/3…MC for Low Output MC Cartridge…
Old pictures…
Richard…a question please…
Were the K or S boards marked on the circuit boards or just the sticker on the rear of the pre-amp? How do you tell the S and K boards apart?
Thanks.
You can just see where the sticker was, I thought I had kept it somewhere, you know, the way we would for the history…
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I ran a 42-SNAPS-NAXO-2 x 110 into SARA’S and Kans for a while. I retrofitted the large tractor wheel onto the SNAPS. It looked cool, all benched out side by side.
Back then I didn’t realise that 2 power supplies would be an improvement, but if I did I would have done.
I wanted to add the tuner, but my boss wouldn’t order one into stock…
I have read of doubled up amps for Isobariks. Using 110s in mono means you could have 12. Add in a couple of HiCaps, a 42.5, NAXO 3-6, a tuner, and well now we’ve got 18.
Another forum member used a SNAPS to power his Walkman, and I saw a while back a photo of a third party CD player wonderfully fitted into a shoebox case. So there’s 20 little shoe boxes now.
Hmm, I feel a project coming on.
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The internal cards also had an “S” or “K” sticker on the end of one of the caps. I am sure a Google image search will prove fruitful.
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Some wonderful equipment in this thread - which ive spent a good few hours reading through
I would love to set up a system with vintage Naim gear, will now be researching what that system may look like and hopefully will be able to acquire some gear, most likely in the Uk, which I can then pick up when I visit later in 2022
If a pre-amp was fitted with particular boards from new then it would usually have indicated which boards on the rear panel.
The easy way to ID between S and K boards if the stickers have dropped off is to look at the big resistor value (470R for S or 560R for K).
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I think you’ve officially knocked that one out the park Steve!
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Thanks…
Regarding the Phono boards and BNC inputs. I am looking for some through boards. Naim do not stock these anymore and it was suggested to get someone to make up flying cartridge leads to make the connections that are provided by the simple through boards.
Would be nice to have the possibility to use the BNC inputs with an external Phonostage or any other source for that matter.
Obviously I would like to keep it such that the operation can be reversed so that I can plug back the N boards which can still be used I assume with most MM cartridges
Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated
I had a VERY indulgent boss. So we often would have things on extended home demo. For sure it was very educational, (I am being serious), but sometimes it was a bit indulgent. As in, let’s drag home a Krell behemoth amplifier and plug in a pair of LS 3/5a speakers, (surprisingly well matched actually), or let’s activate Kans, (I performed surgery on my passives which I actually owned). I had also grafted a Rotel tuner into a old bolt down NAP 160 case just so I could stack it with my 3 x 250s.
Looking back I sometimes am unsure as to exactly what I “owned” as opposed to what I was fiddling with.
But quite a few of my clients were in love with the CB shoe boxes and I sold several active Linn SARA set ups with 2 x 110s, withe the “cute” factor being a big part of the justification.
We never actually stopped to consider if a passive set up with a single 160 was better/worse/different. All those 1/2 size boxes looked cool and EVERYONE knew active was the way to go. Simpler times.
I can also remember the “wow” when Julian first trotted out the new CB look. I can’t recall much about the uplift in sound over the Bolt Down range, (although there was a lot), but the new look was so cool.
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My experience was that cartridge leads weren’t quite the right size, they can be forced on, or pre-distorted to fit.
I used AMP connectors, type 102103-2 which I think is from the same family as the original Naim pins and board mounted connectors.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find a UK stockist so had to order them from the US, although that was a few years ago. However… this was (probably) an excessive response to the problem and I should have just pre-distorted some cartridge leads!
Great to hear of your experiences Steve. I like the fact that a big part of the draw was the cool look of the old shoeboxes.
Do you recall ever seeing / hearing Linn-supplied active Kan 1s?
I never saw a pair of “official” active Kans. I left retail in 1987 and ceased dealing in Linn and Naim in 1991. It wasn’t until the late 90s that I found out Linn were putting the crossovers outside the box, (which is what I did to my Kans so that I could go active/passive easily).
Also I never knew 42s came with an option of an internal cross over module/cards.
Funny what you miss along the way.
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Thanks Steve,
I think Linn just supplied the active Kan 1 without any crossover at all - they just added the extra connectors on the back, but could be wrong
Yup, I recall there was a pair that use to be at the factory, usually piping Spire FM into the component stores area. They had a Naim PXO plugged into the back.
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Never heard of the PXO before. So, you could just order them for Linn speakers and run off a passive amp?