Hi, I’m sure you get this question a lot but I’m in the market for a pre/power amp combo with a cd player. My budget is £2000 second hand. What are your suggestions please
A potential used pre power combo for your budget might be 202 and 150x (or 155xs)
I’d definitely recommend the 202 as a good pre for your ask and you would have a decent upgrade path from there if you so desired.
The 200 is the natural power amp for the 202 but I suspect your budget may not stretch that far.
How about NAC202 & NAP200 pre/power and perhaps one of the CD5 variants?
I expect you could manage that with £2000 ?
Or, if you like the older olive range, a NAC102 & NAP180, with a CDX?
That makes for a very musical combo, imo…
It’s probably worth noting that there are parts availability issues with some Naim CD players.
If you’d rather go for a new CD player, for future warranty/repair assurance, Rega have their Apollo CD player that has been attracting some very positive reviews at around £700, a similar price to a second hand Naim CDX or some of the upper CD5 models, I believe?
You don’t mention whether you also require speakers within that budget, so I presume you already have a pair?
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With a careful bit of hunting you might manage an 82 and a 200 for around £1300 together, which is probably the biggest bang for buck possible.
I had 102/180 from new for 10-11 years and they would cost possibly as little as 600-800. Make sure you get a napsc with the 102 and if possible a hicap too
Not sure about cd player
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82 and 200 is a good combo (I had a 282/200 at some point), but I would suggest the true sweet spot of VFM is 72/140, which I moved to from the above.
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I have no experience with 72 or 140 - though to be fair I have no experience of the 82 or the 200 
but that feels closer to the experience of 102, 180, 250 and 52 (all love) that I do have 
I went 282/200 → 282/HC/200 → 72/HC/200 → 72/HC/140 → 72/SC/135s → 52/SC/135s (and then the 135s started multiplying!)
In my mind the 72 is too close to 282 for the price difference to make sense (and it looks lovely), but the jump to 52 is very large. The 200 is better than the 140, but I could have stopped at 72/140.
Why not go for a Star ,it has Cd built in plus you’ll get streaming.
Having heard the excellent Nova (better than Star) lose to an olive 82/ HC/ 250, and remembering that 72 is not vastly worse than 82, I’d suggest: -
72 plus
Hicap (preferably serviced in the last 15 years if older than that) plus
140 (or 200 or 250 if you find them in your budget)
The 250 is best of those (if ever serviced) but will need a Hicap from day 1 to power the preamp.
The best Naim CD players are great, but a Rega Apollo is VG and easier to find/ fit in your budget than (say) a Naim CDX.
The Cyrus CD8 SE2 also has a lot of fans, with reason. A Roksan Caspian would also be a great choice that occasionally sells inside your likely budget. However, the support Rega give to their kit (like Naim with amplifiers) makes them the obvious choice.
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An 82 at 1k ish plus an amp from cb or Olive era at 500ish 140 or 180, cd player I’d probably look outside of Naim ( heresy I know) as older Naim cd players apparently can be problematic for service parts. Check service records with older kit.
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The OP lists a very interesting cd player in his (?) profile.
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In what way may I ask
That’s true, but…
Many Naim CD players like my CDS2 are still going strong and date from 1998 or so. It’s not surprising that some parts are now running out, surely? There are some rival makers that can still service all their kit (and have the parts) from 25 years ago, but not many, and actually getting a Rotel, Technics or even Marantz player serviced in the UK today would be more than a challenge.
However, all the Ken Ishiwata Marantz CD players were good and some were very good. As @Ardbeg10y says, it’s no answering the OP’s question and we don’t know if it still works well, but it may be that saving a bit (for now) by keeping it for a bit longer and focusing on amplification only would be a good option.
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Absolutely wasn’t doubting the quality of Naim cd players, just the risk of buying second hand. Amplification still seems to have no problems with servicing, other components seem variable.
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How about a Super Nait 3 with HiCapDR keep using your Marantz CD player which maybe as good as a Naim player? Also look at AC power upgrades which are usually very cost effective.
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I’d go for a cd5xs, nac 122 and a nap of choice like the 150 or 200.
This gives loads of opportunities to get infected by upgraditis.
It looks like CD5si and NAIT 5SI has not been suggested yet. I have a CD5i that sounds very nice.
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