I have grown to love my Purple 52 and matching PS.
Very Regal
Purple is of my favourite colours iâd want your set over the normal colour lol
I have noticed a number of Members referring fondly to their 52PS. I had always understood that the Supercap, which replaced it, was a great improvement on the 52PS.
Have I missed something, and is there a debate on this?
Hi Graham,
Iâm not aware of much debate about it. I bought my 52/SC from a Naim dealer. It was his personal pre-amp, not the dealershipâs. He had his 52PS converted to a Supercap back in the day and wished that he hadnât. The consensus, if there is one (!), is that the 52PS is the better power supplyâŚ.
There has been much âdiscussionâ about this. Naim would say that the Supercap design has many performance benefits and I wouldnât disagree with them. 52PS owners would say âso whatâ it doesnât sound better and I wouldnât disagree with them/me either. Some Supercap owners would say that theirs sounds better and I wouldnât argue with them. If you had a choice would you own an E-Type or an XJS?
I would go for the E type, but Iâve had a Supercap for over 30 years.
There must be a reason why Naim introduced the Supercap to replace the 52PS. And I donât suppose that it was just a whim!
I believe it was Reconfigured to allow the power supply to power different pieces of gear and this makes it more viable to produce
What he said plus there was some legislation that the 52PS didnât meet (to do with having having two toroidals I believe). It wasnât because it sounded rubbish
One of the many:
https://community.naimaudio.com/t/nac-52ps-vs-supercap-olive
The lack of consensus looks wider that that - some seem fans of a 52 with more modern iterations of both power amp and power supply, most obviously running a 52 from a SCDR.
The 52PS was supplied with the 52 from 1990-95 and Supercap for another 7 years after that so I would imagine a majority of 52 owners will have a Supercap. I wonder how many actually âupgradedâ to the Supercap? How often do we see a 52PS for sale on its own? I think itâs one of the lesser interesting debates.
As an owner of an olive SC (so no DR) with my 52, it is probably more interesting to me than to those here who have nether - fair enough.
I do remember dealers talking about this over 20 years ago, but donât know how many 52PS owners were persuaded.
Could the 52PS be upgraded to Supercap, if the owner wanted?
Or, if the change was forced on Naim, did most 52PS owners choose to leave âas isâ?
Nap 135s are actually appreciating in value. Iâve bought two pairs in the past 3 years and I paid more the second time round. Between the NAP 135 and a 300 Iâd pick the 135s every day. Much more engaging listen. And the 135s drive difficult loads better than 300 in my experience.
I prefer 52 to 252, so I know what you mean about engagement I think. I found 300s uninspiring, but recommendations that 52 and 300DR work well in that respect seem true to me - on the basis of 1 dayâs listening so far.
135s certainly are going up. A newly-serviced set looks to cost ÂŁ3K or more. Had they still been close to ÂŁ2K, I would probably have tried to save a bit with patience but gone 135.
There was a 52PS to Supercap upgrade scheme that Naim ran. Essentially all it involved was sliding out the old 52PS innards and sliding in a new Supercap innards, and then retaining the older serial number for use on the ânewâ Supercap.
Some of the old 52PS units were then converted for staff use usually to power a Prefix - I had one such and it was very good indeed, almost as good as a Prefix powered by a Supercap.
52PS Canât be âupgradedâ as such but can be swapped for a Supercap and vice versa. Either the whole thing or internals swapped out. The internals are totally different.
Supercap
52PS
Thank you, Richard and Paul.
Using a 52PS just to power a Prefix seems crazy, but it must have seemed like it was on steroids. Was it using the full âwellyâ of the Prefix, or just a little of its potential?
It only used a couple of the regulated supplies, much in the same way as with a Supercap.
Ah! The old Prefix power supply âdiscussionâ.