I have a pair of Harbeth HL compact 7es-3 speakers. A friend of mine proposed to sell me a three years old Yamaha A-S501 amplifier in a like new condition, but some days ago I found a good deal for a serviced Nap 110 and Nac 42. The Yamaha is $500 cheaper than the Nap 110 + Nac 42.
My budget for the amp is $1000 max.
I mostly listen to jazz, classical chamber music, some Rock and Blues. My source is my computer music files and I have Roon and Tidal subscriptions and I am going to purchase a Bluesound Node. I listen to music in my living room (no dedicated listening room!) at a moderate/low volume and I sit about 2 meters from the speakers and the distance between speakers is around 2 meters.
Since this is a Naim Audio community, I guess you value Naim products, so I don’t ask which amp is the “best”, whether the Naim Nap 110 + Nac 42 combo will easily drive my Harbeth Compact 7es-3 speaker?
I never considered buying a vintage amp, but I have heard from many that Naim and Harbeth are a good match.
Being serviced 3 years ago is fine.
I don’t know the speakers so I can’t comment on the match.
I had the 42/110 combo for many years and it drove my Kans and some big old KEF 104ab speakers an ex preferred to the Kan speakers when she was into a reggae phase or we had a party and I didn’t want to risk the Kans. If I were to get any of my previous kit again, it would be this combination.
So, ‘serviced’ by a non-Naim approved person…? He may have a good reputation, but (IMO) that counts for little in this situation.
You have no way of knowing if the right parts have been changed - or if they have been changed to the right ones. Sorry to be the Party Pooper on this, but thats how I see it…
The Compact 7 is a fine speaker, and deserves more than a 42/110 in terms of power, and much more than a Bluesound Node in terms of quality. You won’t be hearing anything like their potential.
The original capacitors used in the 110 are no longer available.
If Naim replace these with capacitors to the same spec as they use in their current amplifiers, they will not sound as good. IMO.
IIRC, naim test those blue caps - most are still good and within spec do they stay. For those that fail there is if course the option to update the 110 to NAP140 spec. @neils can likely explain more here.
It’s pretty rare now to see the blue ITT caps in good order, most are leaking around the terminals or the vent has bulged. So all get replaced with Kemet caps.
We haven’t been able to offer the 140 update for a while now due to lack of the required PCBs .
