Have to say, the level of support for a fellow (suffering) naimee is really quite touching… this is quite the community 
2 Likes
Seriously though. If I bought a 552DR and I was not happy with it. Off it would go straight back to where I bought it. Assuming that’s possible.
I have only heard two systems with a 552 and they were very good.
I assume the OP bought the 552 from the above dealer but I note the OP has moved and is no longer near a dealer. I would at least ask the Guildford dealer for some assistance though, assuming it was bought here.
If the 552 was bought privately then that is a different matter.
Maybe @mij29 can chime in here?
Hi Nigel,
Sure thing; the 552 was a demonstrator with 11 months on the clock and the dealer in question (cannot say who for forum rules??) was super helpful as anyone would expect, and happily brokered the return to Naim for the volume pot investigation. I bought the 552 from that store firstly because it was available and also as I have now moved away from a certain very well respected retailer in Rearsby…
I have noticed that some dealers seem to set far less store by rack placement and dressing of cables and that is interesting, given their impartiality and access to the very finest products in a manufacturers range, including Statement… at the end of the day though, I just want to get the best result from my particular 552 and the collective help and wisdom of experience from so many contributors to this thread today has blown me away.
I hope I can be of as much help to somebody else’s strife one day in return! In the meantime, I’ll get on and build that Quadraspire brain brawn rack…
1 Like
Peace, Rackkit. Maybe you meant nothing
derogatorily, but I didn’t take too kindly to
your third sentence. It wasn’t necessary
to put things across that way.
We are just discussing our hifi hobby
and can agree to disagree cordially
without any sarcasm or cynical labelling.
Choice of words is a powerful thing. Helps
or hurts.
I will always choose to help.
With the benefit of doubt to you, I’ll clarify.
All Naim systems, and cables, in my own limited experience,
take a long time to bed in properly before they really “flow”.
I had a friend who went full circle with cable upgrades
because he had jumped the gun too early when his system
was not bedded in fully and he paid such a heavy price
for the merry-go-round, only to realise much later, he ought
to have held on till the sound had really run in to his ears,
before making the call to change anything. Two months on
he was jumping anxious as a frazzled hare. Then his dealer
loaned him a well used cable, the same as his, and he couldn’t
believe his ears and was full of regret. I learnt much from this
episode, to be patient with my system’s run-in time.
4-6 months is really still bare minimum for me, even now,
regardless of what anyone else here says and thinks is ridiculous.
This timeframe is with some buffer Sir. Not carved in stone. I asked
experienced Naim friends who had been dappling for way longer
than I and they also generally shared minimum 3+ to 4 months of
constant 24x7 play at soft to loud volumes to loosen up everything.
I didn’t have my system playing 24 hours so that could explain
why perhaps your experience with run in is much shorter, as
many tend to leave their systems on 24x7 on CD repeat or the tuner?
For me, it was only about 6 hours daily realistically when home
on weekdays. Weekends about 8 hours. I couldn’t play it loud
as the children were young, and she also wasn’t comfortable leaving
the system on the whole day while I was away at work. And I was
fine with that. I might have had a different experience perhaps had
I left the system on 24x7, so my feedback otherwise on run-in times
will differ from yours. It’s not a reason either way to make snide
remarks but I have given you the benefit of my doubt.
There’s no way to concretely measure burn in, for sure. 6 months
would be just about right for me. IMHO. But even with 3 months,
I suspect on 24 x 7 on soft play most times, might still not be enough
to really sort out the “burn-in kinks” and other set-up adjustments
to the system. I much prefer a longer lead time to really run things
in properly, to “bed down” - so I don’t rush - before making any
conclusions to the actual sound of the system, and addressing
anything I feel needs sorting.
Any earlier and it would have been inconclusive for me.
But to each his own. Patience is key in bedding in before
any major changes are done.
After the tweaking, and adjustments, I found my Naca 5s
in particular to still be improving gradually over that extended
period of time. I really honestly heard them come into full song,
with no more shifts in tone, where they were stably open after
the 6 long months, when they suddenly just “flowed” - gone
was the slightly cold, clinical sterile sound which had pervaded
the system for at least 3, going on 4 months. They got better
and better and kept improving. Some days the system would sound
just so “off”. After the system had been tweaked, cable-dressed
carefully and bedded in well, that was when I remember I didn’t feel
the need to do anything else as I was just happy with the sound.
I hope this has cleared things up with you.
We are all here to support our mutual journeys. Cheers
Good luck and hopefully that’ll do the trick, together with a further allowance for run in time. If you still have issues with the 552’s SQ, the dealer who sold it to you should give you some assistance, even if it is only checking your set up. It is what they are there for.
2 Likes
If it takes you 4-6 months to hear a difference, that’s your experience, it’s just not mine.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
1 Like
Thank you, that’s a really good idea, the issue is the right hand cupboard is too shallow for any Naim box (even the phonostage shoebox needs to be on its side to get it in when cabled up). The current naim stack is at 45 degrees to the adjacent walls and this leaves plenty of cable room in the triangular void behind them.
I’ll see how the brain brawn goes and maybe then take the plunge for Fraim if that ultimately makes that much difference…
1 Like
@dem1973 , @mij29
My preloved 552/500 which must be 20 years old serviced 5 years ago just gets better and better. I suppose 2 years ago I bought a full set of PowerLines and the MusicWorks Ultra G3 with the sparkly bottom. Every step has seemed better, but the new Innuos and Sense App has resulted in the biggest improvement! I really haven’t fiddled for ages.
I really don’t know what brings about changes or whether patience once the fundamentals have been addressed is needed. What I can say is that my boxes make sensational music. I understand the frustrations. I’m sure you have enough suggestions for now.
Phil
1 Like
It defeats me too. Oh well, each to their own!
2 Likes
My money is on the glass used under the 552. It’s easy to think that the 552 will benefit from glass as Naim state that it was designed to be used on their glass shelves. However, before I bought my Fraim I played around with glass on a Quadraspire shelf and the 552 sounded terrible, forward and pitchy to the point that I was turning up and down every few seconds. Simply remove the glass and go back to the bamboo shelf and bliss was once again restored.
1 Like
Curious if the glass used on Fraim is “tuned”
in any manner. Not all glass is the same.
Or could it just be the overall system on the
whole contributing to the sonics?
Saw a 552DR placed on a Thixar base on a Fraim
in place of its glass, and it didn’t sound as if anything
was wanting. The 552DR sounded great. But I would
have liked to hear an A-B to be conclusive.
I think Naim specify a particular glass after trying many different types. Ultimately a solid thick slab of aluminium was found to be best but they couldn’t get the totally flat consistency required. However, this is only part of the story. It’s how the glass interacts with what it is coupled to and the way it transfers the energy and cancels out that high energy glassy sheen you can get from just glass alone.
I’ve only heard glass sound good on a Fraim and on a Mana table. I’ve messed around with many types of glass on sound org tables, Quadraspire and several others tables over the years. All sounded grim. The interface of glass on the Fraim and the Mana tables seems to involve some sort of ‘dark art’ or many hundreds of hours of research or just luck!
1 Like
Hi Geko
Can you say what you did with the glass?
What did the glass rest on?
Was it 10mm thick?
Toughened or not?
Thanks
Jim
Yes aluminium plate was best. Naim could certainly get it incredibly flat - perfectly flat interface plates were a necessity for the SL2 to work properly, and such plates are used for perfectly levelling kit in the factory - the problem was the exceptionally high cost to do so. Various types of glass were among the materials evaluated and one of them came surprisingly close to the aluminium plates, but was far more readily achievable and much less costly.
As you say, just isolating glass per se may well not be ideal, but it’s how it performs as part of a whole design. I’ve certainly tried using certain other racks with glass shelves and some of them make the kit sound pretty horrible. Mana I rather like, especially with the Sondek, although it does tend to have a certain character to it that can work against it with certain kit and with certain music.
2 Likes
Hi bruss,
Not saying that your rack doesn’t work, only what I’ve personally experienced by experimenting with what I’ve had to hand over the years.
1 Like
I understand that but your comment on all other glass sounding grim was a comment too far for me. I appreciate I haven’t got Naim glass, polished on the thighs of vestal virgins in Salisbury ( when you can find them) but not all glass shelving spoils the sound.
I am sure that the Fraim implementation is the best that Naim can recommend for their overall sound until they develop the Fraim Mk11 though.
1 Like
Hi,
I’ve used Mana glass, glass from a supplier that I took the Mana glass to get matched and some Naim glass. I’ve tried thinner glass and thought it worse. Naim and Mana glass is about 10mm thick. Not tried anything thicker but increasing mass can sometimes be beneficial and sometimes not. Experimented with rubber, spikes, ball bearings, nutters, rubber bladders, air bags, carbon fibre. Not found the right combination yet but I think it’s out there somewhere!
A mate of mine who has exactly the same system (except he has 800’s to my DBL’s) still on Mana equipment and I have to say performance wise it’s certainly equal to my Fraim. Maybe it sounds slightly faster but I think that’s the Mana thing coming into play!
4 Likes
For the uninitiated, Mana was quite a set-up nightmare.
Never really knew if they were set up right… even the
dealer was guessing as he went along with the set-up
and once he was done, there was no reference point to
conclude if it was doing as it was meant to.
After some months, the bolts might have to be retightened
again. And things would sound… off or on after the cooling
down of the system and no one would know if it was indeed
for better or worse.
You needed good experience to wring the best from
any Mana set-up.
Fraim when launched was really a sigh of relief
for most of us Naim owners.
Thanks Richard for your insight. The beauty for me with Naim systems
is that it would have been tested to hell and back and if it didn’t work
in the overall system context, we’d never see it. We get what we pay for
and SQ is mostly assured apart from set-up and the room.
Richard, does this mean… some of us madder ones could go out
and try to buy some costly thick and flat aluminium platforms for
use with the Fraim? 
It’s always the sum of parts for our set-ups. The Fraim is no exception.
It’s how they grab us by the b*^ls to pay… ha ha
Lol… I’d be happy to get acquainted with Fraim Mk II if there’s indeed such
a brewing from our imaginations but will not ask how the new platforms
might be made then. Just pay 
and… be happy.
I admire your dare, patience and passion for hi fi. Contributes to experience. Cheers