Well I heard a lot about the NAC52, hmmm, thought ‘naah marketing hyperbole’. And that said, my tale must be a well-trodden path.
Was running an old school system (Olives), LP12 and a DAC V1 (from a Mac Mini, iTunes) through an NAC82 with Twin HiCaps, SNAXO +HiCap, Twin NAP 250’s to Linn Bi-Amped Espeks.
Worked well (20 odd years) until I thought (wrongly) a Linn had popped its bass driver. (This I do find a pain with Naim kit, chasing down a fault). Wrong, the NAP had finally given up. So off to Naim for a full service.
Meantime I managed to pick up a pair of Linn Akubariks and with my NAP back…it sounded, well, awful. Messed around with everything, even getting the second NAP serviced (duuhhh!). Meantime the NAC82 also had just been serviced.
Changed the interconnects. Same, awful.
Did a BitPerfect run on the DAC, better.
Serviced the HiCaps. Better, almost on-song. Came to the conclusion that the Akubariks were just too sensitive so played around with the SNAXO; getting better.
Then it was ‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road…’
Traded the HiCaps for a Supercap = better, much better. So got the system running sweet and then managed to find a hens-tooth NAC52. Now annoyed.
Annoyed because I didn’t do this years ago, the 52 is a totally different beast. The Akubariks either love it (or perform better) but anything I run through it sounds well, just gorgeous. Everything is more ‘there’ audibly.
Frankly as a hard core NAIM user of 30 years plus, the ‘old’ 52 is brilliant, yes I know Naim has new X52 monsters out there but the original sounds just perfect. The hyperbole is true!!
A very happy bunny, with old school kit