I thought both the 52 and 252 powered inputs were provided by two dedicated rails from the Supercap powering the preamp ?
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Buy a Kronos, but obviously audition first. They are outstanding turntables
I thought the same for the 52/SC - the SC should power the Superline.
From my understanding, the only real upgrade would be a separate SC DR to power the Superline directly.
Ah, but it depends. With the 252, it’s powered from separate windings of the SC. You can also power it with a 282, but then it’s not from separate SC windings. So I think the question is if the 52 is the same as the 252 in this regard.
It is. Richard has commented on this several times.
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Yes, the NAC52 powered AUX2 is fed from separate windings and regulators in the power supply.
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That was rather why I mentioned it.
I’d accept ‘more detailed’, but have wondered about this advice on and off for some time.
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The most generous view I have come up with is that the 52 was known to be very second-hand and at that point unserviced, and they knew I had a freshly re-capped Hicap redundant at the time.
A less generous explanation is that they hoped to sell me a SCRD for it, and knew that it beats the Hicap option in every musical box.
FWIW, I just swapped back to Aux 2 - it is perfectly good, less detailed at the margin but that’s not obvious on Deguello, which is what is playing now.
I am sure that a dedicated SCDR for the Supercap is better because I have heard an A/ B test that showed just that.
I’d also probably still vote for the Hicap over Aux 2 in my room and hi-fi, but that seems much more arguable. If I were really obsessive, I’d probably be swapping depending on what I was playing, but that way madness lies…
In any event, it looks like the original advice came from ears more like @Bluesfan 's and less like mine. Perhaps I am getting deafer…
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Sorry about 3 posts in a row, but I have an update!
I received today a new 576R airplugZ in place of the standard 560R I used to use (and thanks to all here for the guidance on that).
Switching between SL/ Hicap and SL-Aux 2 last time I came down on favour of the Hicap (2% more detail and 0.55 less boogie perhaps).
With the better plug, the balance is fractionally more trebly (than it was though not enough to change the capacitance plus for a higher score). However, I can’t hear anything via the Hicap that I am not hearing via the Aux 2.
Of course, I could be fooling myself, so I’ll do a blind test on a couple of mates when I get a chance, to see if they agree. And that way they can do it for me too.
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if I had not read this thread and related ones, I would not have borrowed a airplug. Had i not borrowed an airplug, I would not have ordered one of my own.
Had it not been for other comments, I would probably have gone ages without trying the Aux 2 versus Hicap thing again - it was recalling the ‘absolutely necessary’ comments that got me to swap over - and to swap back shortly afterwards when the postman brought the airplug.
So a big thank you to all because the upshot is that there is now a positive reason not to use the Hicap, which means that I can regard the new airplug as giving markedly better sound for a negative net cost!
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My experience powering the Superline started with my 552, which I enjoyed for many years. Out of curiosity I tried a HiCap DR thinking there’s no way it could outperform the 552 power tap. It only took a few seconds to hear the advantage of the separate power supply. A Supercap DR was added shortly thereafter which took the Superline into another realm. This is where the phono stage becomes world class and how it was designed to work best.
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Hi @ChrisBell - interesting stuff.
As mentioned, I found the Hicap marginally better (net) than Aux 2 on my 52 when using a standard plug but just changed my mind after swapping to a different resistance and a better plug. It looks like you found the gap bigger - and apparently in line with my previous view. Of course, I will try swapping back and doing a blind test when I have someone on-hand to help - either way, for me, the gap is small. Perhaps I am just a bit deafer.
It may be that HCDR does the job much better than an olive Hicap, but my guess is that this is all room/ system/ taste dependent.
The one point where I think everyone agrees is that SCDR + Superline is the best combination, even if it means it is competing with an entirely different price range of phono stages.
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Still don’t get how a change in just a few OhmsR for Naim stages makes such a big difference, yet for others you might need at least, say 50.
This Nick. The SL that we used loved an SC-DR far more to these cloth ears than our serviced olive SC.
Conversely, we preferred our 52 with the olive SC than with the SC-DR.
It’s almost as though the SL was designed and optimised to be powered by an SC-DR via the Burndy cable…
Best regards, BF
I suspect that it’s down to circuit design, which makes the SL far more sensitive than other phono stages to the resistive loading.
Hi @jlewis - in my case I changed from a standard 560R to a 576R airplug Z, a considerable better plug. I suspect that the old plug’s bassier balance is probably why there seemed to be more detail with a Hicap, because I can’t honestly say I am hearing any loss of detail or stereo image now from switching between Hicap and Aux2, and I think the Aux 2’s ‘everything in its proper place’ and ‘boogie’ factors are now the swing factors in which I prefer.
TBH, in my system the improvement (not just difference) between plugs in overall sound quality is bigger than the difference between the two methods of powering the SL - to me that gap is not that big - but there is perhaps something synergistic going on too. Other ears and other systems will quite correctly get different answers I suspect.
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Finding the proffered explanations difficult to swallow!
- It’s about matching to the electrical parameters of the cartridge, rather than some special sensitivity related to the Naim circuit, unless…
- The Naim circuit has some fundamental peculiarity, for example an additional R running in parallel (which would explain the high figures of the matcinng plugs?).
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I’ll have to leave other people to explain what is going on because I can’t.
Going from 560R to 576R seems to increase treble bias a tiny bit. The upgrade to an airplug is more relevant to quality I suspect.
Why that has changed me away from marginally preferring Hicap+SL (one view on this site) to Aux 2 + SL (another way some people prefer it) is something I don’t know, but FWIW…
The Hicap seemed to give a bit more detail at the expense of a tint bit of swing/ boogie, but now I don’t seem to be getting more detail on Hicap or losing out on Aux 2. Perhaps the better plug helps with detail in some way I don’t understand, and there isn’t any extra to be had (to my ears) by having both better plug and Hicap aimed at the same uplift. As you can see, I don’t know how this works at all…
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Bingo!
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