The Naim New Classic range - Part 1

Hi-Fi Corner
5180

I’m also waiting for my boxes.
IIRC the speaker plugs are the special Naim twin pin units. But no worry, plenty of people use standard banana connectors. Just be careful to ensure correct connection but that is the same for any amplifier.

image

Does your old cable look anything like that in the image. It may be black in colour. If it does it may be that your old Naim speaker cable is NACA4, I’m not sure when NACA5 was introduced. They will work just fine as will many of the more standard cables. The new amp is pretty resilient to speaker cable length whereas the older units liked 3.5 m as a min.
I’m sure other more experienced users can fill in with more detail, especially about room sizes. I hope that you really enjoy listening to the new amp.

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5181

Agreed - when I heard the XD, they are faster and clearer than my non-XD. I also believe the weakness of these is only due to lack of bass extension. I must attempt to properly integrate a sub, but this requires crossovers and delay to do properly, which then introduces other issues… I guess ultimately, I’d have to move to Monitor 40 series, but the price is, honestly, absurd…

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5182

Likewise I enjoyed my finance career. Big firm audit training, two years working in Toronto before then transferring to finance in the beer industry doing various different roles ending up working on M&A deals. There was always something new and different going on to keep me interested and challenged. Quite happy to now be retired though!

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5183

Re: does your room justify…?

Yes, very likely.

I’ve run big Meridian DSP6000 and full surround setup in an average UK sized bedroom. As with most of the gear I’ve owned in the last 35 years of this hobby. Sounded sublime. Just set it up OK and get the speaker/seating placement right and it’ll be gold, assuming it’s not a ‘square’ room…

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5184

Thanks James, yes it’s rectangular, 2nd bedroom size with built in wardrobe one end and windows the other, that’s why speakers are placed 9 inches out from longer wall and seating opposite. Sounds ok currently with a NAD M10 all-in-one or Hugo/Tag McLaren Pre/60 Power feeding PMCs but wanting that Naim ‘chug’ sound back that I’ve missed for 25 years😀

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5185

Yes, white, fairly stiff and 3 metres long, curled up behind a carpet. Just about make out the Naim Audio logo and direction arrow. Thanks for reassurance of banana’s! When your boxes due to arrive?

5186

Glad to help.
Boxes are with dealer, just sorting out date when both he and I can be in my house together to go through setup/delivery. Like you I’m using PMC speakers (Twenty5.23). If you read through the forum you will find recommendations for many speaker cables. Previously I used NACA5 but it was very stiff, sound was good though. I then tried Witchhat Phanton, to me, just as good and has the advantage of being much more flexible and not too expensive. Another cable regularly recommended is the Kudos KS1, personally I’ve not tried that so can’t comment on it. A search of the forum will give you lots to read and hopefully not confuse. :joy::joy:

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5187

Can’t cope with another forum thread yet, just spent 10 days reading these 5000 posts :grinning::grinning:!

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5188

It was a nice bonus being told by Hifi Lounge that PMC are a great match for Naim gear. My Naim amps were sold long before I was seduced by PMC at a London Hifi show some years ago and were part of my Lounge AV system. It’s only recently I’ve moved them upstairs into the ‘Music Room’!

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5189

If I may say, still worth a look. To help put you at ease most threads are considerably shorter. This one is a bit unusual. Well done for getting through this one.

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5190

Sounds very similar to the bedroom I was using, then! Surprising what a great sound you can get out of systems in a modest room if you get rhe setup right, and depending on the speakers. Oddly in my room, the bigger speakers, with 4x side firing woofers on each speaker, were the most neutral and full, yet fast in the bass as they are designed to load the room properly. Had to get setup right though - careful positioning of speakers and seating - different for every speaker.

My dealer has a similar sized room, with double doors one end, and generally setup speakers firing across the width. Great sound. Have head very esoteric systems in there and the room is not a limiting factor in showing the differences between them. I think the ability to ‘listen through’ the room is underestimated in these days of “room correction”, which often in my experience causes as much harm as it does good.

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5191

:rofl: tell me about it

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5192

Does this mean that UK->US voltage conversion is still possible in the new series without a new transformer/PSU? Only asking as will be buying here, but planning a move to US in a year or so…

5193

Hi @JamesW,

Yes, easy UK to US voltage conversion:

  • Move 4 wires (transformer primary - change from series to parallel)
  • Change mains fuse
  • Change voltage rating sticker
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5194

I do not find the price of the Monitor 40 absurd. It is a flagship speaker. Compare it to speakers like Magico and Wilson, and it is a bargain.

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5195

Brilliant - thank you!

5196

Yesterday had a great listening session at my dealer, who was so kind to line up 3 systems next to each other:

  1. NAC-N 272 + NAP250DR
  2. NAC-N 272 + NAP300DR
  3. NSC 222 + NAP250(NC)

All 3 options were feeding into the same set of B&W 802 D4. All equipment was well run-in.

I listened to a variety of music: big band (Frank Sinatra, Ella & Louis), piano (Pogorelic playing Scarlatti, Vikingur Olafsson), Radiohead (Karma Police), Bach solo violin, Dire Straits (Six blade knife from their debut album), various church organ with real low notes, Schubert songs on piano, Barbra Streisand, Gary Moore (The Supernatural), Stevie Wonder (Superwoman), Jill Scott (her debut album), Sting (Moon over Bourbon street), symphony music from Mahler, Bruckner & Rachmaninov.

At home I have option “0”: NAC-N 272 + NAP250.2 + 802D4

The results:

  1. The upgrade from 250.2 to 250DR is an great improvement, giving more refinement and detail, but this is 8 years’ old news of course :smile:
  2. The 272+300DR gives even more body, an excellent sound, very natural, very controlled, engaging and easy going. Both acoustic/classical and pop/rock/soul sound exactly as recorded. Very attractive.
  3. The “New Classic” 222+250 has more treble/highs and less bass than option 2. The more pronounced highs makes it very “airy”, such that it really comes off the speakers. Very spacial sound! However the brighter sound (more high, less body/lows) made it less attractive for me.

Conclusion: I was a bit disappointed that the New Classic has sacrified the natural and accurate reproduction of 272+250DR/300DR by a bit brighter sound. It may work well with other, warmer sounding speakers.

In combination with B&W 802 D4, the 272+300DR was for me the winner in this audition!

Interested to learn if anybody was able to do a similar audition?

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5197

I have the 300 Dr with the B&W 802d3 which sounds great. Very smooth and full bodied engaging sound. As the 802d4 is a significant improvement over the d3 your system with the 300dr should be wonderful.

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5198

To my mind those are not comparable economically - companies like Magico and Wilson use exotic materials and designs which are difficult to fashion, etc, and lots of new R&D. Whereas Harbeth are a variation on an decades-old design, using fairly mundane materials/simple construction for the box, and a simple crossover.

The Monitor 40 is basically the Monitor 30 with an extra bass driver, a different crossover, and uses a bit more MDF than it’s smaller sibling. The 40.3 XD currently retails at £17,795. The Monitor 30.2 XD is £4,450. That’s £13,345 more. I really don’t think one more driver and a bit more wood warrant quite that amount of difference. I speak as a Harbeth owner, but the price increases over just the last 5 years have got a bit much, I feel. C7ES-3 has almost doubled in it’s XD guise and the Monitor 40.3 is £7000 more than the 40.2. I refuse to believe the price of parts/labour, although it will have risen, has risen to quite this degree.

The basic R&D for all these was done in the 60s/70’s by the BBC. The Radial driver research was done decades ago by Harbeth, with a government grant. The recent upgrades are, in reality, only crossover tweaks and using slightly better caps, cable and binding posts - I’d be genuinely surprised if the materials represented any more than a couple of hundred pounds difference from the old model.

A comparison to their direct competitors:
Graham LS5/8 £7,785
Spendor Classic 100 £10,250
All similar design/construction…

Ah, but they’re still hand-made in Britain… Well, I used to own Meridian DSP7200.2, which retailed for around £17K around 5 years ago. These were constructed of curved panels of high-pressure laminated composite of premium birch and aluminium (very time consuming and costly to manufacture) with 4x drivers, DACs and amplifiers per speaker, as well as DSP - in other words a complete high-end audio system, only requiring a source. They were also made in the UK (in Cambridge), by hand and sounded superb…

Just my thinking, though. I know others will feel differently, and the ‘high-end’ is often priced out of all reason - value is in the eye, and pocket, of the beholder!

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5199

It would be interesting to follow this up by splitting the NC components, e.g. trying 272/NC250 and 222/300DR, to see if the ‘new sound’ is generally across the NC range or is either the source or power amp…

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