I currently have a Supernait 3 on loan from my dealer to assess before making a decision on whether to buy or not. In the three weeks I’ve had it it’s been fine and I’m loving the sound in two channel stereo for music playback.
But at 5am this morning I was awoken by a loud noise downstairs. On entering the lounge there was extremely loud feedback coming from left/right speakers. I immediately switched off the Naim amp and went back to bed. I’m sure it woke my neighbours it was that loud.
At 8.30 I switched my system on again. The same feedback noise started again. Turned Naim off a second time.
The input on the Naim was set to AV and the bypass switch was ON. My Yamaha Aventage RX-A3010 AVR was connected to the Naim via two RCA cables from pre-out into the AV inputs. B&W loudspeakers for left and right channels were connected to the Naim. The only input to the Yamaha is the SkyQ box via an audio digital cable.
I spoke to the dealer and he suggested powering the Yamaha off for several minutes to allow it to reset. I did that and during this time the Naim was also powered off.
When I turned the Yamaha and Naim back on everything was fine. No horrendous feedback noise. I have a SkyQ box connected to my Yamaha and although the AVR was in standby mode it was last set to the Sky input.
Is this just a one in a million incident or should I be concerned about any incompatibility between Yamaha and Naim? For three weeks everything was fine. Maybe it was just a power ‘blip’. Hard to say. But before I commit to a purchase I need to be reasonably certain this won’t occur again. In 40 years of owning hi-fi I’ve never had this problem but this is my first amp with HT bypass.
I’d appreciate any comments or advice from Naim as I have a decision to make early next week.
unsettling behaviour I’m sure, especially during deep sleep.
It’s possible as your Sky Q is likely left powered all the time that whilst it’s in standby mode during inactivity at night time it’s scheduled to power up and check for software/firmware updates and that in itself could be activating the interfaces between it and the AV amp and in turn causing that AV amp to awake from it’s own standby state, over HDMI or digital audio as would be the case in your setup I imagine, sensing an active digital input to the AV amp and coming out of standby as a result.
Even so it’s unusual behaviour and likely an anomaly, certainly worth checking if you can minimise any output risk from the AV amp towards the SN3 by having the volume down to 0 and ideally powering the AV amp off when not in use as the input to the SN3 is effectively at 0dB and attenuated by the AV amp so extraneous system noise could leak through despite other things being constant like the volume pot on the AV amp being low or 0/muted.
Does it do that under normal use or only when inactive/standby?
Thank you for your reply. To answer your last point first, the AVR switches from on into standby with the last volume level set. When it is powered on from standby there is a volume level it defaults to. -30 in my case. It would become a chore to have to set the AVR volume to zero each evening. It has been suggested to me to switch the Naim to an unused input. Whilst that cannot be programmed directly into my Harmony remote I can create a button to select the input manually and then hit the OFF button but of course the NAIM remains on. Having to power it off each evening would be tiresome.
Given everything was fine for 3 weeks I suspect this was just an anomaly but I have to make a decision soon on whether to buy the Naim. Are there any NAIM employees around that can advise if this will happen from time to time and if so how best to prevent a repeat. Switching to an unused input seems the simplest. Having to power the AVR down means accessing the wall behind the unit and wouldn’t be easy.
Very occasionally but the forum is predominantly meant for owners/fans and not as a means of engaging support. Knowing how busy tech support can be, they won’t be looking at this forum; the correct channel is via phone or email to support@naimaudio.com
Btw if it were me I’d switch the sn to another input when done. It very much sounds like a 1 off occurrence but to completely avoid a repeat that’s an obvious solution. In ht mode the sn is just sitting there passively and would be impacted by whatever is going on upstream.
The usual path to resolution would be a first step via your supply dealer and you can also call Naim support directly at their HQ in Salisbury UK.
This user community is not proactively monitored by Naim engineering but they do on occasion pop in to threads with comments on specific issues. @NeilS is a Naim employee who may comment here if appropriate but I would certainly advise to feed your query via your dealer in the first instance and in parallel give Naim Technical Support a call as they may have a straightforwards answer to quench your concerns.
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Thanks chaps. I have written to Naim support so let’s see what they say. Switching to another input seems the best option and if I can program it into my Harmony all the better.
I’ve done similar in the past with other NAIT’s and an Arcam AV receiver. I typically turned my AV amp off when not in use for reference.
My current setup is SN3 + NDX2 only.
Do you mean physically turning it off or it just going into standby? Most AVRs are not designed to be powered down. I’m switching the SN3 to input 1 which isn’t used. That should prevent a repetition of what happened last night.
A mix of both, sometimes I’d leave it fully on, in standby and also switch it off using the power button on the front!
I’ve had it for years and never had any issues with it, turning these things on and off doesn’t cause them any harm, if you do turn the amp off, as I do my Naim amp if I’m not using if for more than a few days or during lightning, it works fine when it comes back on as does the Arcam AV amp, they just take a while for the capacitors to charge up and settle down, usually within half an hour it’s settled down anyway.
Switching your SN3 to a regular line input should be fine as you say.