I just acquired and installed a Statement system last week (March 9th).
Good News: It sounds magnificent, a clear upgrade over my 500/552 DR rig. It also has improved over the past week as it warms up. I expect that process to continue for another couple of weeks, or so. Also, the physical presence is positively staggering.
Bad News: I do a lot of recording from my CD and LP collection onto a Revox R2R (PR99). At least I used to . I just realized that recording is no longer an option as the Statement pre does not have an output to do so. This was an extremely disappointing (and unimaginable) development. I doubt I would have purchased the Statement had I realized this. Additionally, I will not be able to use my Naim Headline (for headphone use) for the same reason. I cannot fathom why Naim would build a “cost no object” preamp which does not have these features. The only consolation is that I have a second system in my basement made up of: 250/252SC, nonDR, CDS3/nonDR XPS pushing Linn Isobariks. I have a second Revox R2R there also. I guess if I still want to do recording (which I VERY MUCH want to do) I’ll need to use that system with all its inferior qualities. VERY FRUSTRATING!
If anyone could explain why the Statement was developed in this way, I would be very interested in the knowing. Additionally, if there is some way around this problem while utilizing the Statement, please let me know.
I purchased the Statement used from the UK (I’m in NY). It never crossed my mind to enquire about a basic feature that had always been included in Naim’s preamps, like the 252 and 552.
I’m actually considering selling them. The last thing I should be feeling with a Statement in my living room is disappointment and frustration.
Sorry to hear this Mitch. Last thing you should be is disappointed after all that money and effort.
While this doesn’t help your situation at all,can you help me understand why it is important to record LPs and CDs to RtoR when you have the originals at your disposal?
One thing i’d add from personal experience is that we used to love making Revox mixtapes from a mix of sources (CD; NAS etc). Sounded great, and of course all the organic experience of R2R. But after we’d had the ND555 for a while, I created a playlist (all from the same CDs and NAS files as I had used to create the tapes) and it blew the Revox away. After some soul-searching, we sold our beloved tape machine, and all our tapes - couldn’t justify having such a beautiful machine and not using it.
Let me think this through, but to help out I could swap my recently serviced NAC 72 for the Statement S1?
Just a thought. Let me know if we can work something out.
That’s a thread title I hadn’t expected to see.
@Mitch I just had a look at the on-line manual. Section 4.1 is about input mapping. One of the options is AV. Surely that would mean two of the pins in each DIN socket are output L and R. Have you tried mapping one input to AV?
@clive
I just had a look at the on-line manual. Section 4.1 is about input mapping. One of the options is AV. Surely that would mean two of the pins in each DIN socket are output L and R. Have you tried mapping one input to AV?
I am currently using the AV input for my DVD player. I don’t think your suggestion will work because I do not believe assumption about the output pins is correct. I have the R2R currently plugged into the AUX DIN input, the none of those 5 pins does output.
I was just comparing it with the inputs on the 552, on which only inputs 4 and 5 are AV configurable, whereas if I understand correctly, any of the three DIN sockets on NAC S1 can be assigned to AV. Which input is selected when the AV indicator lights up? You could try plugging your R2R in there or just assigning the socket it’s currently plugged into to AV.
I’m sorry if this doesn’t work; I’m only trying to interpret the manual to help.
Thank you Clive. I will check out your suggestion, but I was told by Mark Bonner, head of Naim Service in UK that unlike the 552 (and all other Naim preamps) the Statement is not wired that way. He said it is not fitted with tape output loops.
…um, without wishing to precipitate an argument, I do not think that this is relevant. The real question is around the dealer’s and customer’s responsibility in ensuring that they buy a product which meets their personal needs and expectations rather than making assumptions that these will be met.
If you switch the output options to din plus bal, then you have left and right output via 2 separate dins which you can then connect to a recorder.
However that would be a volume controlled output not line level.
At the same time, output would be fed to the s1 power amps via the xlr connections.
You could look into connecting your reel to reel to the din unbalanced outputs on the S1 Pre. Read section 2.3 in the statement manual. You could set the outputs switch to both the balanced and unbalanced. You would have an issue that the volume control would alter the level of the outputs and I would check with Naim that it would work but I think in principle it would work with the right cable.
