Supernait 3 - Not So Super?

As Max recently said:

… it’s the Labrador of amps.

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Yes i agree. A good clean example SN3 with maybe a year or two behind it tend to float for around £2600/2800 from a reputable dealership, which i think is about right and quite reasonable, especially if you factor in any warranty that may come with the unit as well. Of course, any scruffy example will always fetch for considerably less so and what may appear to be a bargain actually isn’t. I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole. :relieved:

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With all due respect for the God of PR&T, I’ve never so far heard such a powerful, transparent, exact and unquestionable amplification as the Statement. And it’s a masterpiece of visual engineering. May those who have it enjoy it.

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The day I’ll hear a Nait 50 with any turntable make me see Clifford Curzon playing Mozart and almost see him touching the piano keys with infinite care and love, as I heard it through Solstice and Statement, I’ll buy a Nait 50.

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It is a great amp,there were no used availabla year ago With the new classics i think people are selling and upgrading. I dont see the 200 level new classics as enough of an upgrade to justify selling- for me, now. If you got ndx2 and sn3 id dare you tell me its not very synergistic at a minimum . I run some wilson tunetots with mine and it is dynamite. I listened to some alex v’s with dagostino amps and thought my system was better. Really.

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It was a joke from me…relatively to the crap comments on the SN3 lacking prat.

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I understood it as that - along with some of the other comments, though it is a bit difficult to tell the difference between ironic / sarcastic replies and genuine complaints.

I haven’t heard SN1 or SN2 but had an SN3 and hicap for a few months with an NDX and found it much better than the Nova which (via an Atom) replaced it (I really should have kept it) - no shortage of prat there and sufficient to satisfy in a second system (unlike the Atom and Nova to me) despite the 555/552/500 that was downstairs at the time. This in my study system. Am now about to put together a 282/250dr/hicap/NDX combination to replace the Nova which went towards a main system upgrade. The study speakers are nSats on wall brackets

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This Prat thing is a bit funny thing. All Naim components, from Olive to new classic range have Prat. Is Olive have more, or new classic more than the preceding range ? I really doubt.
The recent reviews point that Naim, with the new 222/200 returned to the original Naim prat sound. So the black green logo boxes were not timing well enough ? :face_with_monocle:
Funny statements.

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Good Pun.
:roll_eyes: :face_with_hand_over_mouth: :rofl:

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Hey, don’t forget about the CB’s before Olive! Both my 110 I had and now my 160 bolt down have more PRAT than you could ever need! The 110 sometimes almost too much…

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Yes, but I have never heard CB. It shouldn’t be different for them.

Sorry… these days I am a little slow at everything.
2023 is not my year…
M

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Take a look at number 7 :thinking:

It even beat Statement! :rofl:

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Having read this thread I am seriously considering changing my Uniti Star for an SN3 and NDX5 S2. Question is would I notice a big improvement over the Star with my B&W 706 S2’s? Also would the DAC in the NDX5 be good enough to feed from a CD transport (can you even do this with the NDX5 S2?). Or would it be more sensible to look at good second hand CD players like the CD5si or maybe a high end Arcam? Thinking of looking at pre owned to keep the cost reasonable so can’t really audition beforehand. Thanks in advance for your thoughts

I don’t know how much of a difference there is with the star but when I upgraded to that combo from the atom it was a great uplift I preferred it to the 202/napsc/200dr combo I also auditioned because the sn3 was more cohesive. I have upgraded again recently but that was only because I saw this as a great chance to get an ex demo upgrade at a good price. While I obviously prefer the more forward sound of my new combo I still say there was nothing I disliked about the nd5xs2/sn3.

Edit I’m still using nd5 xs2 with my current system whether the dac is enough I don’t know I plan to try a ndac at some point if my dealer ever gets one traded in but I’m in no rush and don’t feel like my source is in anyway a let down.

They come up on eBay and pfm occasionally.

Nd5xs2/SN3 is a well balanced combo. You can still upgrade after: external dac on the Nd5xs2, Hicap dr, 282, 250. Then Supercap, then 252, 300 dr…. A bit joking, but it’s all true.

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Other threads will probably help here. Fwiw…

Because we had them all around for a while, we compared Nova and Atom with ND5XS2 and with NDX2 (with and without XPSDR), and using both 82/Hicap/250 and 52/Supercap/ 300DR.

I was expecting to buy a new Nova (just like my girlfriend’s) for the house in Tasmania -after all, a Nova sounds great and is tidy and modern. It’s also a lot better than an Atom and quite a lot better than a Star (though a Star has the CD drive that Nova and Atom do not).

The result of our listening here was that I went to the bother of buying a s/h ND5XS2 (and a Core) and shipping it with an old (but serviced) 82/Hicap/250 combo all the way to Tasmania.

Neither of us wanted the messy multi-box answer to sound markedly better, for aesthetic and convenience reasons, but we couldn’t deny that it did.In reality, the gap from Nova to the kit we shipped to Tassie could well be bigger than the gap between that system and the full NDX2/XPSDR/ 52/Supercap/ 300DR that I was listening to in Wimbledon until a few minutes ago.

I might get an nDAC for the Tassie system, but I probably won’t. Via 82 etc the nDAC is an upgrade but imho it is not that compelling an upgrade until you get above 82/HC/250 amplification, though those with better/ younger ears may well disagree.

If you value the aesthetics of the new designs, or having just 1 box and no knitting, the Atom is good and Star and Nova are better. You also get that pretty screen. However, for max sound quality or max sound-per-£, buying the separates secondhand is to our ears a compellingly better option.

I wouldn’t say that an SN3 quite matches 82/Hicap/ 250 (otherwise we’d have got that instead). However, our experiments mean that I would strongly encourage anyone to hear ND5XS2+SN3 (perhaps with other options) before buying a Nova.

Also, lots of people here will agree that an nDAC improves that ND5XS2 and that a Hicap improves the SN3 - I think the bigger debate is which is the bigger upgrade out of those two, and how far each elevates the system versus more expensive boxes.

The commonest views seem to be that ND5XS2+NDAC = NDX2 (without XPSDR) for overall SQ, and that SN3+HCDR is quite a long way toward sounding as good as 282/HCDR/250 (and better than 202/200).

Sorry for the length, but I hope it helps.

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Yeah I’ve thought about it but I want to be able to test it before paying if possible so I’ll wait and see if the upcoming system upgrade options lead to someone trading one in. If it doesn’t happen in the next year I may have a rethink.