In which case, £5,700 would be a bargain. I’m not sure a Hicap ever made a ‘massive’ improvement to anything.
Thanks, Gazza.
I’m in Denmark this coming week and my system is still at Signals, I’m picking it up next Saturday. I’ll certainly give this a listen when it’s back, home.
The Neil Young, Live at Massey Hall is a really great concert. I tend to put in on and listen to the whole thing - it’s such a nice recording it’s almost as if you can go back in time and be there…
His little asides as he introduces each song tends to add to the atmosphere… particularly when introducing ’The Needle and the Damage Done’. You really do get to think about all the musicians and songwriters we never got to hear because of heroin or alcohol addiction…
You also get to see that he can be a grumpy so-and-so… He berated a photographer for taking photos during the songs, as he says, ‘out of time’ which was putting him off. Fair though… in an intimate venue, it is quite disruptive.
I didn’t answer the other question, I’m slightly reluctant to keep adding stuff to a Naim forum, but yes.
I think I’ll pop back to ‘lurking’. I just wanted to add something to the new classic thread now I’ve had some time with it.
It did. It was a miraculous improvement in my SuperNait 1. The SN1 is a bit rough, but with a HiCap it gets much more refined. Very similar to the SN2 actually.
Nigel, please don’t ask Livingstone re. Dynaudio speakers as forum rules will not allow him to respond. Thanks.
As ever, one person’s massive or miraculous is another’s modest or minor. The point is that nobody is required to add a power supply. It’s simply an option.
Interesting stuff. Jason Kennedy 's review says ‘psuedo’ XLR outputs and a headphone output identical to Unity Atom, and not the Atom Headphone edition:
‘[…] there is a pair of XLR connections [but not] balanced in the differential sense, but pseudo or impedance balanced’
‘[headphone] output is excellent…and identical to the one fitted to the uniti Atom.’
Absolutely my experience too. I would not have bought my SN1 without a HC as well. Getting it DR’d was another major step up in SQ.
Roger
Bill, your room was the star of the show for me, by a margin. I was in there early on Friday. I think you thought I was asleep during Neil Young/Old Man, but I was blissfully listening with eyes closed as I would at home, just trying to take out the visuals to really listen. It worked!
Thanks for a great demo.
If that’s the case, the reviewer needs to get his facts straight. The 222 uses the same headphone amp as the Atom HE.
Thank you for that kind comment…
And as for closing your eyes to focus on following the music with no visual distractions…?
I do exactly the same. All the time😊
With that system, you find you can easily follow the music note by note, on any instrument, rising and falling in pitch almost like an emotional rollercoaster - and then you find you can do it on a voice or another instrument or two, simultaneously, just as you can with live music… and with uncoloured and fast loudspeakers, you find even complex music and structure is easily followed and unfatiguing to listen to. That’s why I think the new classic range is so good… there’s a real musicality there which wasn’t there before at this price level.
If you just listen to sound, I can see why some people don’t get it, but if you focus on the music, the 222/300/250 system is simply stunning.
… and thank you again for the compliment on our room…very much appreciated.
I think this is a key point and something my dealer encouraged me to do over 30 years ago. A system can continue to satisfy long after the initially exciting hi fi factors have become the norm again. For me it’s a key Naim trait. Those that knock the brand must be looking for something different which is fair enough of course.
Livingston, does 222/250 have the right to live without 300PS? Which combination from the old line it will be equal?
If that’s the case, does this mean that unlike the Uniti range, the analogue inputs can’t be used for multi-room? Or are they only digitised when that’s enabled?
Hello @ChrisSU. Yes I did think so, but then I read Kennedy’s item and thought, well, surely it’s rare for a reviewer omit such a vital distinction. I mean blimey, the difference between the two Headphone stages is quite a lot isn’t it? Careless words can be so damaging…hang on let me quickly have a look at the product spec on the website…
Okay…it states the following:
NSC 222 is also equipped with the full Naim technology for headphone listening, which is inherited from the Uniti Atom Headphone Edition
To me, the quote above seems to be saying that it’s based on the Atom HE. That’s a very different proposition. Do you know what I mean? Surely they’d be very clear and explicitly state that it’s the same thing - it’d certainly be a smaller word count? Maybe it’s me, but I’m not convinced…
It has the same headphone amplification but not the same connectors as the HE. That is the difference.
But as Steve says somewhere above the result will still be better than the HE. Considering that statement alone there is no way it will have the headphone stage of the normal Atom.
This is what Steve Sells had to say about it.
I haven’t tried the 222 myself, but the original Atom is certainly nothing special as a headphone amp so I think it’s pretty safe to say that the 222 will be a significant step up from it.
I asked this question earlier and Steve said that only digital sources could be multiroomed.
And the reason for this is that “balanced” for headphones is just a confusing reuse of the word. It is not even remotely related to “balanced line” or “balanced variable output” as used on interconnects.
Balanced headphones means that each channel has it’s own discrete common as opposed to two hots and one shared common. While it can certainly be beneficial consider the fact there are new $20K headphone amps on the market that are still single ended only. It’s a nice to have, but in and of itself, balanced headphone connections are not a reason to rule in or rule out purchasing a headphone amp.