It is a lovely thing. I got my NAIT 1 out of its box at the weekend to check something and looking at the two side by side, the little design tweaks on the 2023 version are very tastefully done. The brushed aluminium front panel and that nicely weighted volume control add to the quality feel of this little amp.
Unfortunately, my ’50 is sat unused in my office at the moment, but will hopefully get some use in the next couple of months when I sort out a second system using a pair of Shahinian Compass speakers I also have spare
I’ve had them for about 4 years on the end of a 10w amp. They are incredibly transparent and can really let you pull apart a recording even at very low volumes. The lack of crossover means you get the benefit of active with just one amp.
Like most speakers, there is a trade off. Whizzer cones have a very narrow bubble. It’s not quite “head in a vice” off axis issues, but they definitely are more for a defined listening position for one person.
I imagine they’d go great with a Nait 50. Handmade in Connecticut. Over 200 veneer finishes available. I almost went for purple birch in honour of Prince.
Hi… I looked into these seeing your post. Some comments say they can sound a bit wheezy or sibilancey on higher vocals sometimes. Have you noticed that to any extent… or is it more about amps/sources being used?
BTW lack of cross over really benefits crossover distortion between drivers, which for most occurs in the sensitive mid freq range…
some of the best sounding passive multi driver speakers have very simple and phase aligned crossovers… I certainly subscribe to the less is more in this area… hence why your post caught my attention.
I’ve not found them to be sibilancy at all. They are significantly smoother in this area by some degree compared to my PMCs. I do drive them with a Luxman tube amp and a Luxman DAC front end. I suspect a lot of problems may come from poor matching with mullet sources.
I’ve written a great deal about them in the following thread and really the main issue, as stated earlier is they are really a speaker for an audience of one. And right now, I have them in my office with a little Don Draper escape corner for moments of musical reflection. I previously had them in an open plan apartment and they filled the whole living-dining-kitchen area perfectly well (if not with great balance outside of the listening position).
Thanks, interesting about the PMCs… I found the older models really poor here with the tweeter driver… I have heard they have now improved it… it must have been affecting sales.
BTW starting reading your thread thanks, … many pictures of audio valve amps with no shielding around the exposed valves… this is just soooo bad for the average modern house … sure it looks good… but from an electronics point of view not good at all… but I will leave that for another day.
Basically valves can be susceptible to RFI and can indeed amplify the RF energy in many ways more easily that transistor circuitry… in the average house the background RF noise level is higher than say it was 50 years ago with more gadgets and small computers in many devices - not mentioning mobile phones, wifi etc… therefore I would be looking for screening or Faraday cage around exposed audio amp’s valves - and some screens can be done in an aesthetically pleasing way I believe, where you can still see the ‘glow’ of the heating element in the valve which perhaps is what people like to see…
It’s always a tradeoff somewhere though. It actually comes with a cage and I used it while the kids were small, only removing for photographs. Apparently they last longer without a cage on and my EL84s are pushed well under their operating ceiling where they should last 10 years. But they died after 3.5. Of course they might have died anyway. Luxman do say, “don’t remove the cage.”
These certainly looks the business, and not insane expensive.
Only dowside is import from US to EU could be expensive, they seem to trade direct factory only, I couldn’t find any distributor.
I do like the outriggers, match perfect and asumely better performance.
I’d wish I could fine similar for my Rega RX3.
Given the Nait 50 has met with such plaudits (the little box that could…) but has a limited production run, I wonder if an ‘unlimited’ edition will be announced? Surely there will be a further shoebox integrated based on it…not designated ‘50’ obviously, to protect that exclusivity.
the pre output not so worried out - but I would appreciate line tape out on one of the inputs - would you believe I am missing that - the size and convenience of this device lends itself to taping… and DIN makes it compact. Also a remote control would be good if it doesn’t detract from performance…
@Simon-in-Suffolk
Simon, just had a scroll through this thread and I’m curious - you’re clearly very happy with your NAIT 50, I just wondered what size is your listening room. Trying to get a feel as to whether this might work in my room. Cheers.
