Hi everyone. One year later and my beloved 1998-vintage Naim system (bought in Australia) has had its full service at Naim headquarters in Salisbury, thanks to Andy at Winchester Hifi. I’d like to thank the members of the Naim community who suggested I went to Andy. Once I had managed to get all 6 boxes DHL’d from Mallorca to UK, I timed it perfectly in a period where Naim Salisbury had temporarily shut down their service centre to manage a backlog. But Andy kindly contacted me when the system was ‘on’ again and I took the kit over to Winchester. Andy took the entire set of boxes up to Salisbury on my behalf (moral number one: never throw your original boxes away - thank heavens I had kept them all these years). Amazingly (for me) just over 4 weeks later Andy rang me to let me know that the entire system had been serviced. It turned out that the NAC102 required its reservoir, radial and tantalum capacitors replaced. Go figure I would never have guessed it was the NAC102 that was at fault that one out - so brilliant advice from Andy to get the entire kit serviced in one go. I have a feeling Andy mentioned to the service centre that I was heading back to Spain in the first week of July). The came the DHL journey back which, of course, involved an extended period in customs in Barcelona whilst I had to persuade them that the system really was almost 30 years old. But all good. Back in position in Mallorca and hopefully rewired up correctly again (I took photos of the back cabling before deconstructing it all but I forgot to colour code the four sets of speaker cables… next time :-)). So a huge vote of thanks to Andy at Winchester Hifi. Finally the CD2.5 was pronounced dead on arrival because the tracking laser is no longer available, but Andy had a second hand Naim CDX for sale so all good on the CD front. Thanks again everyone!
Which speakers do you have?
Hi - I have a pair of original Naim Black Intro speakers. They are active speakers (I got them at the same time as the rest of the system in 1999) - so they have two sets of input connections on each speaker.
Very fun speakers when active 
You are not wrong on there!
My only regret is that I did not know that the NAC102 and NAIXO needed to be ‘tuned’ by Naim to optimise the response levels to the Naim Intro speakers when active. After 27 years of listening to them, getting the great advice to contact Andy at Winchester Hifi and for Andy to ask Naim to optimise the output for my Intros as part of getting the system its 25 year overhaul has resulted in a revalation when I plugged verything back together again.
All I can say is wow! I didn;t know the speakers were that good. Previously, if you so much as touched the volume control on the NAC102, the sound level was already way too loud. Now you need to turn the volume control, to a ‘normal’ level on the 360 degrees to get to the same point.
And on top of that the Naim CDX that Andy sold me is a definite improvement on our old Naim CD2.5, which, unfortunately has gone to Naim CD heaven, and currently resides in our attic while I figure out if I can source the required laser sensor somewhere. It worked brilliantly until it didn’t…
I have a feeling the next thing I need to do (other than getting the speakers overhauled if that is still possible, is to upgrade the speaker cables after all these years.
The next cab off the rank is our UnitiQTE which we bought around 15 years ago I think, maybe more. At least that one I can bring to the UK as hand luggage…
Thanks again to everyone who has helped and especially Andy.
Hi glad you are really enjoying your music even more now that your kit has been serviced successfully.
Your system kind of mirrors ours withe CDX being the main and only source and like you we have passive MK 1 Intro`s. Just a few suggestions that we have made that have allowed the Intros really sing. We added an XPS to our CDX and the improvement in frequency balance and width of soundstage was amazing plus more detail in most all discs played.
We were using Witchhat speaker cable and replaced this with NAC A5 as the Intros were voiced with this cable again big improvement in the bass, more solid. We added a High Line interconnect between the CDX and our 102 and again greater detail and realism especially in acoustic guitar. Unlike yours we run Intros passively and the final icing on the cake was replacing our NAP 200 with a 250 DR , now we were really cooking and the addition of Power Lites on all units make the whole system a real keeper for the long term.
Hi - Thanks a lot for a such a detailed post. There are some great suggestions there to follow up on. Now that you mention it - most of the 5 pin DIN connectors between the bits of kit are also almost 30 years old. As they say - onto it!. Thanks again and best wishes.
My advice is to go active with Intro I’s
Just got to let the monthly pension build up again in savings… but then!
Andy at Winch Hifi is a pretty d@mn good guy!
That’s an understatement. Talk about above and beyond! I would have had absolutely no idea that the NAC102 and NAIXO needed to be ‘tuned’ for the Intros..
Yes it’s great when you get good support especially for older kit, had the same experience with Tom Tom, Henry was amazing with advice and service.
Just as an aside as we have upgraded system components to lift the best out of the Intros we have put our faith in several main CD albums that have appreciated in detail etc with each move
Of these one off the best is Loose Talk by Bryan Ferry and Amelia Barratt. Spoken poetry and supporting music. As we have moved and upgraded the album makes more sense.
Good luck and best wishes.