Qutest, Hugo TT2, Mscaler

Please post how you fare with the phoenix as is on my wish list too :wink:

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interesting - one would not normally think the 250.2 is an underpowered amp… but it seems the etude is quite the amplifier…

have to say thought you aren’t using the same speaker cable on both amps? Unfortunately Naim doesn’t recommend anything other than NACA5 and the expensive Superlumina speaker cable.

Well the 250 isn’t a muscle amp by any stretch. Power-wise all Naim amps are kind of middle of the road. Even the 500 isn’t exactly a beast compared to many. If you want to drive really hard loads with Naim, you often need to think about biamping or adjusting the desired speakers to something more manageable.

The 250’s 80w seem powerful next to loads of high end 20w amps but it’s really at just a modest amp.

well the 250 and the etude are about the same watts

the 250 can output 150 W per channel at 4 ohms, same as the etude.

So not sure the etude is more powerful

Hi Simon. If you can get your hands on Audience AU24-SX or Audience Front Row I think you might be very happy. The other cables to try are Siltech. They sound nothing like you think. :blush:

is this with the chord preamp ?

The Etude appears not to be more powerful in practical terms, but it appears to me that there are two differences that may be significant here:

  1. The Etude’s output impedance is 1/10th of the 250’s rather high 0.22 so has a greater “damping factor”.

  2. It seems from at least some some people’s comments I’ve read, that as you move up the amp hierarchy the improvement of other aspects on top of the core timing focus means that the characteristic ‘Naim sound’ is diluted - or in other words in the 250 it constrains some characteristics of the sound. Increased bass is sometimes cited when people move up the Naim amps, something not evident from declared frequency response.

For 2 this is not the case at all

Perhaps you should take the time to hear a few naim Amplifiers?

If that was easy I might, but as I have indicated before it is not. However there has been much reported on the forum over the years that leads me to that speculation, though I freely admit it is just that, speculation based on the reported experiences of others.

I can tell you they are very different amps. The grip and control of the Etude on the 19s is quite remarkable. I tend to ignore the specs and listen… but the Etude is relatively modest at around 300 W into 4 ohms combined, or about 75 W per channel into 8 ohms, but it’s low out impedance and peak current reserves into a very wide bandwidth as well as being very fast amp that allows it to time wonderfully using frequencies and performance I haven’t really heard from 19s in a musical way before.
But then it is a different design architecture and approach from the Naim amps… so I would expect to be different.

No … and attempting to finalise and sort before Christmas.
Right now TT2 on high gain mode, mscalar (although reservations on RFI), Etude, but might try Ultima 6 as well.
I think I have discarded DAVE… it is very detailed, but possibly too clinical and slightly monochromatic, although the planars work rather well. It’s great on ambient live recordings (ie the Cash prison recordings are good) , but many other recordings less soo, coming across as too forward and simply to my ears not sufficiently musical. The TT2 is not as clinically detailed, but is smoother, more organic and vibrant, and has a greater weight in sound, also has a more capable headphone amp… I guess horses for courses.

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Yes I might look at that

It’s interesting you mention this. I was always under the imoression that Naim don’t publish the damping factor because they believe it is a useless number. Any DF over 20 (which nearly every amp is) has remarkably little benefit despite amps out there with DF measured in hundreds.

I’m not sure how true that really is but I remember a thread on the old forum where someone got really hung up on wanting to know the DF of a Nait XS and the forum sent the poor guy packing.

Naim has published this on their website:

I didn’t find “Damping Factor” in there. And it’s not a Naim doc. Were you expecting a reader to just work it out from output impedance?

Damping factors across the audio band are key if you want to grip loudspeakers across a high frequency response, the lower the damping factor the more the inductive potential divider between amp out and loudspeaker transducers allows the speakers to overshoot or undershoot the signal… blurring the sound and reducing timing and loosing detail.
What is also worth remembering, the DF is only relevant for a spot frequency… so you could find a high DF for mids, but low DF for deep bass and very high treble, which will indicate a reduced performance overall. Also the DF needs to combine speakers and speaker cable. The DF for just an amp is a meaningless concept… it is only meaningful for an amp with specific speakers and cables.
They key amp measure is the output impedance across the audio band frequencies.

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I am encouraging you to hear them as i am quite optimistic you might like it enough to consider a change from your Bryston

There’s plenty of pre loved naim combinations !

Sorry, yes I meant they publish the output impedance.

I wasn’t thinking in terms of numeric figure for damping factor, rather that up to a point where it is insignificant compared to the resistance of connection and cable the lower that of the amp the greater its damping effect on the speaker. I.e. from the published data for the two it appears possible that 250’s output impedance may be high enough to reduce its damping effect compared to the Etude, at least unless someone is using very thin or very long speaker cables or connections poorly made.

Possibly at certain frequencies, and will be speaker impedance response curve dependent in the limit.

Given that from time to time I play music at realistic levels, and that doing so takes my bass amp right up to the point of clipping on peaks - peak output 500W into the 4ohms that my speakers are (nominal), I anticipate that anything less than the 300 would be inadequate. I’m not going to take a punt at the prices it commands (and that is before factoring in the cost of three for triamping!) If I ever get to hear it ‘ll mean a trip to a dealer, which from where I live at present is a significant commitment.