Hi All.
Been integrating my Naim system with home theater in one form or another for many years but now I have taken a step forward which I wanted to share.
My old system was based around a NAC122x, flatcap 2x and a nap 150. AV processing duties were handled by the Onkyo TX-NR5008. The Naim system powered my front two speakers and the Onkyo powered my center speaker. a REL strata V subwoofer handled LFE duties. So the system was mostly 3.1 system which was very very pleasant to listen to and didn’t leave me feelink lacking when watching movies.
Fast forward almost two decades and my system now is the NDX2, 282, 300 with all their dedicated power supplies. Purchased new Sonus Faber Olympica Nova 3 and C1 center channel speakers and subwoofer got upgraded to the REL 812. Now I was ready for a full 5.1 experience.
The challenge in my mind was whether to go center pre-out to the 122/FC2x/150 or just go direct to the 150x. Dealer suggested to go direct and a few forum members suggested the same. So I purchased a 4 pin DIN-RCA adapter and when directly to the NAP 150. The rear speakers were still being fed directly from the Onkyo as I thought rear channels are mostly for SFX/ambience and at 8 ohms should not be too much for the Onkyo. Unity gain is obviously the way I went connecting the front channels to the 282.
Result? It works great. The center speaker is showing more weight and more viscerality. voices are fuller and more intelligable. I previously though that I wasn’t hearing tonal discrepency between my front and center speakers given the different amplifications but I was wrong. Now the sound is more Naim through out the front.
The downside?
I am only using one channel from the nap 150 and don’t know if there is a way to combine both channels for more power. But given that the amp is about 18 years old I have reaped its value many times over.
That’s all I have regarding my AV setup connectivity and the sound at home is ourperforming the local box office to my ears
tell me more please…
the center out from the Onkyo is a single RCA lead while the 4 pin DIN-RCA cable is a 2 RCA adapter (1 remains unplugges and unused)
You need to have both inputs of the 150 connected to the centre output of the processor. You could get a custom cable made up to do this or just use an RCA Y adapter for now.
There are 4 connectors on the speaker. Remove the links between the two red and two black connectors.
Hi and appologies for the very late reply as I was out of town on vacation. When listening to movies the signal paths are like this
L/R: Onkyo R/L pre out > 282 unity gain > 300 > Sonus faber olympica Nova 3
Center: Onkyo center pre out > Nap 150 (using a 4 pin RCA-DIN cable) > sonus faber olympica C1
Surround R/L: Onkyo surround R/L speaker out > SF Toy speakers
With the 32.5/Supercap in place the system has more drive, better dynamics and more body and weight. Removing was softer and less dynamic
I do also use an XPS-2 with the AV2 as well, as I only really use for cinema I could remove and reduce the box count. These then drive 4 x135’s bi-amping the fronts but better leaving in for cinema as well. In fact CD replay through a modded 4k player is actually quite good
