As the system opened up over the course of the week, I have some more details from the experience with 332, 333/300 with 250. I’ll add those at the bottom.
These are my notes before I placed them on the first rack of Fraim last night. Second is on the way for next week. Honestly, Fraim didn’t take it further. Maybe it’s the acoustics change in the room since there was a large and heavy furniture between the speakers, now I have much more wall surface. The part I didn’t like about Fraim is the speed/pace of the music is a bit less than my prior set up with Isoacoustics platforms under every box.
Before Fraim, I also tried 300 with 332, 300 with 333 has more detail and impact, 332-300 warmed up the tone a tad and added more bass impact, but that didn’t match the level of detail especially spatial information with the 333-300 combo.
PRaT: Everything is snappier with higher dynamic resolution. When I wrote my first impressions, I used relentless PRaT, it really is. It just has this sense of pace that I haven’t experienced before either in pre-Naim journey or with 222/300. It’s been very hard to turn this thing off once it starts playing. This really is the summary to take away: don’t start playing NC series if you need to go somewhere:)
Before Fraim:
Dynamics: Compared to 222, which has an impressive dynamics combined with 250 and it’s been a joy to hear tracks with vocals or drums with fast transitions between dips and peaks. 332/333/300 combo takes this to an audibly higher level and truly reveals what 250 is really capable of. That’s why I wrote that it made me appreciate what a great amp NC250 is. I still plan to go all 6 boxes but it’ll be hard to part ways with 250. It’s not going to be the weak link in most systems.
Imaging and resolution:
Like most other observations from others on the forum, there is undeniably more detail but it comes in a very musical way since the superb timing lines it up perfectly. 222 was highly resolving as well but there’s a difference in how everything is on the surface or emphasized like a real performance. An easy example is how you hear the individual notes of the bass guitar in a track on 332/333 that was way back in 222. Depending on the recording, I could follow every instrument on a track from start to finish. This brings me to how it’s all presented, clearly layered front to back, but instruments on the back are still highly resolving. Some tracks it’s a hyper realistic presentation that vocals are front and center, very focused without approximation, instruments are in layers in the back, all delivered with loads of spatial information.
My summary is that 222/300 with 250 was a great combination, can easily be an end game for most of us, very presentable in a living room set up, and has all the feature set one needs. I sought to see what’s beyond the 200 series, and starting to find out it’s a different ballgame. It needs its Fraim, needs more cables, etc. but seeing a preview of its rewards, I plan on continuing the pursuit with 350s as the next step.
