As always DB your posts are very useful. What does hf noise sound like? My digital is inky black when nothing to hear.
I’m listening to Madonna Ray of Light on the 252/300. Plenty of excitement but looking forward to a more refined sound as @Clive remarked. Apart from the 15% extra for the dealer the 500 series once it reaches a certain point seems to hold it value. New is a bit like cars in the early years, but cars keep on dropping.
This evening is box packing for a trip to the dealer. I kind of feel that buying by part exchange through a dealer costs a bit more (15 % ) but there are some benefits such as limited warranty.
In context of what I mean it is like an overlay of roughness peaking in the higher frequencies - heard on cymbals and other percussive instruments and any high frequency notes on organ and a roughness on Female vocals.
I use ‘noise’ when I mean it seems to be there all the time and sits over the underlying music. I use ‘distortion’ when I mean no noise but just when something in the music is happening.
It may be the higher charging currents flowing in Power Amps mean that they tend to introduce this kind of noise near the Equipment power inlet. The lowest impedance is not the Power Station as normally stated, but the rectifier in the power supply that shorts the mains 100 times a sec (UK) to pull the current needed for the DC supplies after rectification and at high frequencies it is the proximity and length of cable and its characteristics near where that is happening that manage the mains -spike noise from causing problems elsewhere - perhaps.
In any case that ‘noise’ is what I hear - others may differ.
Possibly all boxes have this effect but they draw less dynamic current so give a different character. The Power Amp is class B and draws a dynamic music-correlated current from the mains unlike the other supplies.
I decided that after easter i would book in for a demo at the dealers and try my system with the cables, SL and True Signal audio, plus with the speaker cables not just interconnects. Then will try in the system i hope to get to 552/500. I just want to be sure wherever i am headed…that i still don,t like SL. The dealer tells me i am not the only person who found them unappealing…but it makes me nervous enough to make sure i am making the right decision.
The 552-500 does work well - IMO of course - with the SL cables. My proviso is that they are a well run-in set of cables. The Interconnects take longest to run-in and can sound thin, harsh and ‘reedy’ until they run-in - it was these cables that made me realise run-in was very real with cables, as I’d borrowed a well-run-in set and loved them - then my own purchased new items arrived and they were horrible for days, then bad for weeks then good, excellent and finally superb transparent dynamic expressive cables - I wish they could have just began like that.
The SL Speaker leads only take about a week to lose their run-in trait of being dull and murky - that very quickly goes.
The trouble is I listen to some other cables and find they have their own foibles and perhaps you gravitate towards what you prefer. Naim’s SL cables - leaving aside run-in - are always ‘quicker’ than all the other cables I’ve heard that sound so dead-slow by comparison - and the SL cables convey detail and phase information very well to do imaging rendition as well as the music and timing aspects.
Some of the preference may be coming from an Active system where immediacy is an open-window it has to when that is done better or worse may bias my own preferences. I also home-demoed an expensive cable that was being raved about and expected to get at least good results and was so underwhelmed that I began to realise there are different things people value that this cable presented but to me it sounded squashed and contrived and made it easy to stomach the ‘burn-in’ phase of the SL cables - but I did need to hear them run-in and working well first.
A good set of cables will definitely make the 552-500 musically fly.
Thanks DB, the True Signal audio on both nd555 to 252 preamp and preamp to nap300 sounded very open and musical, but perhaps a-tad bright. The SL interconnects by comparison sounded compressed and lifeless. The optimum outcome was replacing my hiline with the True Signal 5pin din to din, but with the SL interconnects from preamp to nap300. This was an improvement over my hiline and std interconnects, but without the brightness of the full True Signal cables.
Asked my wife to listen as well, she did not like the full SL. So just in case the SL 5 pin din to din was suspect, i will be trying again…just to make sure.
I’m very surprised that would be the ultimate outcome, as that sounds like a new cable result.
I found it took a considerable time for my SL interconnects to run-in to open-out and breath musically, but they eventually did and now they do a wonderful job. It may be worth, if possible, trying an older set of SL cables to see if you have a demo set that are too new.
If the set my Dealer initially loaned me sounded like my new set I then purchased I would have said something along the lines you said but worse and looked elsewhere for cables.
Some alternatives sound over-heavy to me - just personally - and the True Signal lead I tried - albeit a totally different cable, was also too bright for my taste.
A lot of this is system matching and tailoring the end result to what you want.
One thing to also consider is that the SL cable is very revealing of system set-up and mine was too bright until I repositioned my equipment more forward on the glass shelves of my Fraim away from center - that made a big difference and big improvement.
I find the newer Naim cables and DR upgrade increases the power and purity of harmonic structures in music and removes the spreading of the notes - this does hammer your system installation with a lot more spectral energy (more energy at particular frequencies) for the same ‘volume’ - when you get it all tuned-up right you realise you are listening to musical instruments now and wonder what you had before.
However it goes, trust what you hear and be prepared to experiment with the set-up of the equipment.
We use the same dealer DB, so it was nit a new set if leads, but the first 5 pin to 5 pin SL was faulty with a pin and wire had became unsoldered…nasty buzz. I just wonder if the second was not perfect? Hence trying all over again. Anyway i will set up a new thread after i retest
552/500 up and running. Now playing The Dreaming which is already sounding transformed, and much better than the best I ever heard it. This combo has the ability to replay the music faithfully.
Hi Clive, there now! The anxieties were about parting with a nice sounding system and then having more to do. Just want to enjoy the music. I’m very glad I went for the 500 as well.
Thanks for your help. It sounded good there but it didn’t have the emotional engagement. In my system and room it’s showing it’s pedigree. Come and listen once 8 days are past.
Yeti, I talked with Peter, the LP12 man, when I swapped my boxes for the 552/500. He told me that the Naim Superline 100 ohm plug is not the same as the Rega 100 ohm settings for its MC cartridges. I think he thought 470 ohms better. One reason perhaps my demo was not a success. I did get advice here though.
The other point he made was that the Rega Aura easily outperforms Superline + SuperCap. He confirmed my impressions of the Aura.
. More later.
