NAP 300 vs NAP 500

I have wall to wall carpet on a suspended floor. Not very solid.
They are currently on Herbie’s gliders to allow adjustment in speaker position for now. Honestly I’m not sure if spiking them through the carpet sounds better since they would be coupled to a “wobbly “ floor.
I wonder if it would be better to uncouple them from the floor with something like the Gaia feet or leave them on these gliders .

Well that might be the culprit. The extra from the 500 may have pushed things too far. Strengthening the floor may be better.

Phil

Absolutely.

The more you couple the speakers to your suspended wooden floor, the more your floor becomes a gigantic speaker.

And that gigantic speaker will produce a mash of low-end frequencies that will mess with your direct sound.

Something like TownshEnd Podiums might help.

@PeterR just added a pair of those to his speakers and seams delighted with the result.

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I have a very wobbly wooden suspended floor (my listening room is on the first floor). When I moved my listening room, my speakers were temporarily unspiked to allow me to easily experiment with speaker positions. When I finalised the speaker positions I found that reinstalling the spikes brought a significant improvement.

I do understand the dilemma of whether to secure speakers firmly to the floor or decouple the speakers from the floor. Spiking reduces the speaker cabinet from moving in response to driven cone movements, thus preserving the intended cone movements relative to the speaker cabinet. Decoupling isolates the speaker from the floor and hence reduces vibrations in the speaker cabinet being transmitted to the floor, and from the floor to the listener.

Which way to go (spiking or decoupling) seems very speaker dependent. With my speakers, spiking is much preferred in terms of SQ, even though I have a rather ‘excitable’ floor.

Experimenting with spiking and decoupling is the only way to find out which is preferable with your speakers and your floor.

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Thanks, I wonder if the Gaia feet accomplish the same?

The GAIA’s are really good and you can get carpet discs with spikes on them to go under the GAIA’s. The Isoaccoustics certainly is worth trying and will isolate from your floor. You need to demo them.

I guess they achieve the same goal but differently.
Considering you have a carpeted room, the Podiums might be a better solution.
But I’m just guessing. I have no experience with those devices.

The higher in the range you go the greater the potential but the harder it is to realise. If an upgrade doesn’t satisfy then something you expect to make no difference is making one.

If you have a dealer on side who knows what he’s about he should be the first port of call.
I’ve learnt a few things from mine over the years and discovered a few more.

Very good point Yeti :+1:t3:ATB Peter

I went on the the same journey - loved the 300DR - and when I got the 500DR I wasn’t naive to expect fireworks, but I did expect more of what I already loved. And that’s exactly what I got.

The fundamental presentation wasn’t different to my ears - there was just MORE. More groooove, more depth, more snap.

I replaced like for like into a wall socket using a bog standard Naim Power Cable (I couldn’t use the PowerLines at that point due to a physical limitation of my shelf) and was immediately happy id made the right choice. Importantly - my wife was also happy - I don’t say that in a SHMBO way, but she listens to things purely on face value, with no investment (emotional or financial!) in it being better.

Kind of along the theme of what other people have said - I wonder if expectations are for angels singing and bright light up in the heavens, the journey CERTAINLY isn’t that. It’s not subtle either, but it’s “better” to my ears. MUCH better.

There’s something to be said for it just perhaps being change - like getting a new pair of shoes. They feel a bit wrong at first and you miss the old ones, even though you know they weren’t as good. But I’m surprised you’re shaking your head and not loving it.

I can’t comment on if you’ve got anything “wrong” with the setup, I know nothing of plugging orders and mains quality! …but if you replaced it like for like, and music is coming out you’ve got nothing wrong there that wasn’t wrong before.

Maybe - like somebody else said - grab a glass of something nice, kick back and see if the love flows! …we’ve all had that inexplicable euphoric experience associated with our setups - that kind of sets the tone for how we feel about it from that point on, you likely had plenty with the 300DR - sounds like you need one of those with the 500DR!

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I think it’s the loss of groove that is the OPs problem with inserting the the 500 and its ps where the 300 was. Groove is what Naim is for but sometimes it can be elusive after an upgrade.
The influence of the magnetic fields of the large transformers on the more sensitive components, the very reason they’re in separate boxes in the first place, shouldn’t be ignored. Nor should the signal earthing scheme, one and only one per system.
As an experiment I’ve even tried ordering the plugs on my linear block in order of the distance of their boxes from it so that the source providing it gets the first socket, the pre amp ps the second and then the phonostage and power amp. It seems to work well at keeping the detail in the right place rather than drawing attention to itself and undermining the groove but I also found that plugging my two turntables’ ps into the first two sockets out of the 6 had quite a marked effect for the better and rather undermined my earthing idea as neither extends its earth beyond the power supplies own box.
The maddest thing is that while listening to music from the ND555 I can hear an effect on it from swapping the order of the two record decks’ power supplies, even with neither deck turning, though at least one of the transformers in their ps is energised regardless.
All this after a properly adjusted Fraim, or rather pair of Fraims, dressed cables (relaxed and in good condition, I had to send a Burndy in attention when it started showing its innards).
At 500 level all this stuff matters, a 282/hi/250 is more forgiving, though you can still hear the benefit of a full Fraim, well set up.

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That’s exactly it.

I experienced that very same feeling when I bought a new bike : lighter, swifter, etc. Still, I missed my previous one :sweat_smile:
It took at least 200Km to realise how wrong I was…

Same thing when adding the EtherRegen, and then adding fibre to it. The ER, and fibre in particular, removed some graininess in sound. I missed that graininess. I felt something was missing.

The truth is that I enjoyed the violins with added noise.
I even thought it was more “real” :sweat_smile: .
It is only when I got used to this “leaner” and silky highs that I realised it was a lot better without noise :joy:

Habits is something reassuring.
Changing can, sometimes, generate imbalance.

Perception is a tricky thing, isn’t it? :thinking:

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