Could someone please make some suggestions with components to pair with some of new purchases: 250DR/272/Rega Planar 6.
The dealer that sold me the Rega says the Naim Stageline doesn’t pair great with the Rega and I would be better off with a Rega phonostage power supply. I believe, he suggested the Aria.
Also, the Naim dealer suggested maybe a Highcap as an addition to the system.
I would greatly appreciate advice so I don’t go down the wrong path. By the way, if some of the above seems naive, you would be correct. Basically, I’m trying to learn the Naim ropes
With the stageline you need a power supply. It get’s expensive for what you get with a Hicap. I had the stageline/flatcap and was going to try a Hicap. My dealer recommended the Aria as an alternative at half the price of a Hicap with trade-in and the Aria was much,much better.
If you have a Rega cartaridge it makes sense to audtion the Rega Phono or Aria. Takes up much less space, too. Just keep it as far away from the 272 as possible.
Then the Aria or Rega Phono MC would be a great match. They are designed to go together. If you plan on moving up/upgrading your turntable in the future an Aria may make more sense.
As far as placement, I originally had the Aria on the shelf directly below the 272. A forum member mentioned how his Aria sounded more open further away from his other equipement so I tried moving my Aria as far away from the 272 as possible. Not only did my LP12 sound better the streamer on the 272 improved as well. Another reason I love this forum.
I’ve had an aria back to back with a stageline on my RP8 apheta 2 and I would not agree that the aria is much much better. The aria had better soundstage but the stageline had more attack and boogie. I kept the stageline. If I hadn’t already owned the stageline, and a flatcap for my tuner, its possible I would have kept the aria but there is not sufficient improvement, either way, to move one on for the other imo. The stageline plays very nicely with my rega
The problem with a Stageline and a 272 is that the 272 cannot power the Stageline, so you must have a power supply, which is expensive. A Fono MC or Aria would therefore be ideal and of course are a perfect match for the Ania. Is the 6 on a Rega wallshelf? If not I’d get one, and make sure the 272/250 is on a good rack. If you later want to improve things, you are looking at an XPSDR or 555PSDR.
The 250/272/Planar 6 are awaiting me picking them up from each dealer. In full disclosure, I live in New York at the moment so buying I’m the Rega here so I can listen to my records with my Naim XS then when I move to Ireland next year I will have my 250/272 in a Dublin dealer waiting for me. In the mean time, trying to match everything up so when I move back after 19 years, I’m all ready to go equipment wise. I get the feeling most here are saying go with aria as the best match for sound and price wise.
Hungryhalibut, I can not see myself upgrading dramatically after the above pairings and everyone’s suggestions to my above questions.
Maybe some confusion going on here. If you went for a Naim Headline phono stage, you would use a Hicap to power it. Otherwise, there is no place for it in your system. If you wanted an upgrade for the 272/250, an XPS to power the 272 would be worth considering.
I’ve not heard a Stageline, but I’ve received advice from several who have heard both Aria and Stageline AND Superline that Aria is a tremendous value and performer. I was pondering Superline and got talked out of it. My RP8/Apheta2/Aria sounds lovely, and at some point of the new Rega Aura phonostage starts appearing on the used market I may well ‘invest’ in that after hearing it. I’ve been talked out of a Naim phonostage for the visible future. Form factor (number and size of boxes) and total cost are not all that competitive with the Rega offerings.
Not much more I can add really, I could never cope with the idea of two more boxes just for a phono stage when my old Naim preamp had a built in one that seemed to do a good job. So I ran my LP12 with a Rega Fono for a while, and I was happy with that.
@Woody – as you’ll be moving across the Atlantic next year, it may make sense to use a Stageline now (powered from your Nait XS) and get a UK/Euro-voltage Aria when you get to Ireland. Since the Stageline requires an external power source, you can easily sell it no matter which side of the pond you’re on.
One of the issues with Stageline/Superline is that the load resistance plugs do not deliver the right loading (at least for Rega Cartridges). 100 ohm Naim Plug is not 100 ohm cartridge loading.
I learnt this from Peter (not Alastair as originally posted - Thanks Nigel) at the well known shop near Leicester. He invented the improve plugs based on the HiLine DIN, so he should know what he is talking about. He is a big fan of the Rega Aria and Aura phonostages.
The Aria performs very nicely with 552/500. It would be nice to have an Aura though, but I’m really enjoying streaming these days with Innuos Zenith Mk 2 into nDAC/555 DRPS via Audiophilleo + PurePower USB to Spdif.
I think you are confusing your dealers. Alastair’s from Signals, which isn’t that near Leicester. Cymbiosis, which is indeed near Leicester, is where Peter can be found.
I am about upgrade my phono pre from pro-ject phono box se ii to either rega aria or ifi audio iphono2. I use lyra helicon mc cartridge. Could someone please make some suggestions. I was thinking cyrus phono but little over my budget now. So thinking aria or iphono2. Is it worth changing pro-ject phono box se ii?
