Hi,I’ve just upgraded my speakers to sonus faber sonetto v111 and was wondering if the nova would sound better with a power amp.Any ideas?
I am wandering the same having owned a Nova now for 2 weeks. It sounds great into Shahinian Obelisks with plenty of headroom. I daren’t play at more than 60% output, in fact have adjusted the Max volume on both the speaker and headphones to 60% which feels about right for now. Given that it has 80W Output the addition of a power amp would need to be at least 80W or presumably would be a retrograde step so that means a NAP250 which is also rated at 80W so the question I have is would the £4K investment be a worthwhile addition in terms of bang for buck?
Nove can take a 300 dr Naim makes a “ Y “ cable for this kind of set up
8k for a 300 is a step too far i feel,it’s just would a 250 give me a noticeable difference
It will !!!
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On the web site I see Naim recommends a 200 as the upgrade path at 70W you would think its underrated???
I think a 250 at 80w would be the way forward
If you go there I would be interested in the result. Having owned a NAP300 (with 252) I would question the quality of the preamp in the Nova to get the best out of the 300. Just curious as to why Naim recommend the 200 and not the 250 as the upgrade path (or have I misread that somewhere)?. Is it considered that even the 250 would be a stretch for the Nova’s preamp?
The guy who bought my 250DR added it to his Nova and found it made very little difference. The Nova is designed as an all in one. If a significant improvement is required then that’s really a NDX2, 282 Hicap and 250. Or the 272 replacement with 250, should the 272 replacement appear.
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Thanks HH, useful feedback, guessed so…so one would think a 200 would be less so?
It’s not something I would do. But then I wouldn’t try to run Obelisks off a Nova either.
I think you would be surprised. Up against the CDS3/252/300 the Nova performs pretty well. Obviously not the air and space that the above combination delivers but I I am hearing things I have never heard before from my streamed 16 bit CD recordings and it is far from being run-in yet. It certainly has the power to drive them. The plan was to swap out the Obs for some mid range Dynaudio’s to better match the Nova, but right now I am undecided. Well see…
If you have the speakers as a remnant from a bigger system it may well make complete sense to keep them. Less sense to add a power amp to the Nova. If you had wanted a two box setup then an NDX2/SN3 would be the logical answer.
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Actually my real goal has been to remove CD from the equation, add decent streaming and bring in a vinyl front end whilst limiting the box count and weight contained in the Fraim stack which was damaging my floor 
. Its entirely possible that the 10mm dedicated mains and CU which I installed years ago as per the original RKR recipe (and powerline) is turbo charging the Nova to greater heights, but right now lets say I am not disappointed with the switch so far…but I take your point regarding the 250/2 box argument…the Nova styling does look cool though 
I’m going to try a March linear power amp off my Nova and SN2, I’ll let you know how I get on. The Naim power amps are too rich for me.
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Not Perreaux anymore my sweetie?
I wonder how class d power amp can change or not the Naim sound signature. You will tell us.
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Indeed. The March is designed as a straight linear power amp, so just amplifying the incoming signal and delivering it to the speaker without changing the character or adding noise or distortion, and they have tests showing that. I’ve heard the P502 on a NAC 72 and it had significantly more dynamic range and headroom than my SN2 and he had swapped the P502 in for a CB 250 and said the 502 was in a different league. So we are going to bang it on the Nova and SN2 and see what it does!
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No, I want to stay with Naim pre-amps, just exploring getting more current to the speakers at an affordable cost and avoiding a vortex of Naim box swapping with separates.
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…surely you cant hook a SN2 up to a Nova (or can you)?
You can, but that’s not what I mean. I have two systems, so I’m going to try the 502 on each system (the Nova and the SN2) to see what I think / hear.
You could run the pre-amp out on the Nova to the SN2 and use just the power amp stage of SN2 if you wanted to, but that would probably only make sense if you had a spare SN2 to use…