I recently upgraded my Heed Quasar with a Lejonklou Entity, and I’m now considering simplifying things by replacing my never-serviced 282/HiCap/Napsc with a Lejonklou Superkikkin.
I was considering a bare 332, but at the price, the Superkikkin is tempting (and supposedly a great preamp).
I’ve seen posts where older Naim amps have been used successfully with a non-Naim pre, and my understanding is that the NC is even better-suited to a non-Naim pre, so I don’t expect any issues.
I’m wondering if anyone has heard the Superkikkin and can compare it to what I have or the 332.
Lastly, can someone confirm that the following is the cable that I want?: NAA00100245
@CharlieO if you can stretch your budget, the 332 is a GREAT PREAMP and compatible either way the NC 250. I do not recommend mixing OC with NC as you need special cables and the sonic signatures are not then identical. The NC is more neutral IMHO.
Did you own the 332 plus on OC 250, or have a hybrid NC/OC system at any point? I thought you swapped your old system in one go to the NC setup? I don’t have experience of NC components but I guess the provision of the special cables to connect old and new is recognition by Naim that this is entirely reasonable. Many mix OC/NC in various ways. Anyway the OP has an new 250 so this isn’t really relevant.
CharlieO. The preamp is often described as really the defining component in a Naim system, so I assume your non-Naim pre will have it’s own character. Have to demo. Great name for a component though (Superkikkin) so should be brilliant!
@BruceW i never mixed NC and OC. I had no desire to do do. Just because Naim provides the cables, for me, did not make it optimal. It just made it feasible.
Hi BruceW, the pre is supposed to be more ‘musical’, so I can’t see how it could do anything but complement the Naim amp. If you’re not familiar with it, you might want to take a look, extremely minimalistic design. Add to that the price and the small footprint (~1/7th of the shelf space of my current pre), it’s got me thinking that a demo is called for!
And Jaybar, when I added the NC250 to my 282, it elevated everything, but I can appreciate that there could be some validity to keeping components in the same series/generation.
That’s not how I see it, having tried a couple of non-Naim preamps with a Naim Classic power amp, neither of which gave very good results. So perhaps it might be better to say that a New Classic power amp is not a mismatch (if that is the case - I haven’t tried) rather than being “even better”.
I would add that Naim have always maintained that their preamps define the operating parameters for the power amp and that non-Naim preamps are likely not to achieve this, whereas a Naim preamp is likely to make a good match with a non-Naim power amp.
Like you I suspect, I was driven towards alternatives to the 282 by the desire to declutter. This led me eventually to the 332, Naim’s first preamp to contain a power supply in the box.
(For what it’s worth I’m not convinced by this idea that Classic (or older) and New Classic boxes don’t work well together. It’s not something I’ve tried, but claims I’ve read here seem speculative.)
Thanks for sharing your personal experience. I know that the oldest Naim doesn’t play well with others, but I thought the OC did ok, perhaps I misread.
If I proceed with the demo and it fails, then the 332 would be where I’m headed as well.