The Naim New Classic range - Part 1

The 222 isn’t a waste for a vinyl fronted system. If you haven’t spent some time listening to it with a good MM cart or an MC with a decent SUT, do yourself a favor and do so before forming an opinion.

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No demo will change my opinion on that. Enjoy your system.

‘We will fight them on the beaches’ … Honestly folks, this is just History repeating itself :relaxed: ATB Peter

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Ha! We’ll there you go!

@PHABH11 what streamer have you got? I am thinking of going down the same path. Thanks

Was the headband not wide enough?

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This was very much what I heard at my demo. But elmarko’s argument is so convincing perhaps we should ignore our own actual listening experience…

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Nah, I had a proper preamp and preferred the better dynamics.

You should be happy you’re getting off cheap. Nothing to fuss over now, right?

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So just to be clear - you haven’t heard the new kit and no demo would change your opinion.

Only option left then is the opinion of others who have listened and compared. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Yes you evidently need the expanded headroom

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Did you quote me out of context on purpose? To be clear, if vinyl were my primary source I would not be in the market for a 222. I’m not in the habit of building a system around my secondary source. And I Ieft vinyl many years ago. Everyone has opinions here and I’m not too interested in the opinions that value a different listening experience than my own.

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You can say that again in spades :joy:

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Gents, call time. I think we should give Richard at least one night off…

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Boing…

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I was thinking of a 555 ps for my NDX2 before the new Classics launch. Perhaps this has been discussed on this thread, but are there ideas on where the 300 ps falls in the range? Between the XPS and 555, or closer to one than the other?

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Ah, time for :popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

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@LuckyLarue I do not have any listening experience of the NPX300, but I do have a 555PS. Speculatively, and in light of continuing production of the 555PS (for now), I would at best guesstimate “it’s close”, but would tip my hat to the 555PS. The only way to truly tell is an actual compare.

The extrapolation I use is based on pricing, prior performance uplifts and directional “nudging and winking” from this thread that can help us infer. (Naim does not price a performant item below a comparatively sub-performing item in my view, including the new series intros.)

Example: the new 250. Directional suggestions are “close to 300DR”, from both @nicnaim and reports of others from @110dB. This mirrors my prior experience of demoing a 250DR and remarking at the time how close it sounded (to me) to 300 non-DR. Progress.

If we extrapolate from there, I imagine some FOMO position might exude NPX300 trounces a 555PS. In reality it might well be different. I was rather amazed over a period of time how the 555PS helped provide that frequently cited “insight” and “timbre”, and, my goodness, it’s not going back :slight_smile:

At this moment, I’m looking for how the rest of the 300-series develops and what might be in store for the current reference series. (And that Naim are probably not developing a 300-series that clearly exceeds the current 500.)

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Funny thing that people tend to favor what they have them selves. Sure your 202 is fantastic. But nsc 222 is on a totally different level just as a pre amp stand alone. I have talked to two different dealers and they say the same thing. Nsc 222 performance is on par with nac 282 with hicap or better. So your 202 pre amp gets blown away in comparison. It just lacs sofistication even with napsc and hicap connected.

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Having now bought and installed the new 250 with hours of listening, I can confirm that it is much better than both the 250dr (that it replaces) and better than the 3ßßdr.

I suspect that the new 300 will be on its way utilising the new “300” power supply which will obviously sound better than the current 300dr.

As you say, the new 300 will be pegged below the 500.

At this level of hifi, they are all very good and after a few months of ownership the sound signature of the kit becomes the norm. That is until someone hears it that is not used to hearing quality hifi, with a wow factor….until they enquire how much it all costs!

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Dual mono blocs would unbalance the brain and brawn stacks for some :thinking:

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