Currently have Olive 82/250/Supercap. I have the opportunity in obtaining an Olive XPS power supply. Now will this improve my system or is it unnecessary? Furthermore, if purchase how would i use it within my system?
Thanks for anyone’s thoughts on this
Do you have a Naim cd player?
“The old ‘Olive’ XPS is still compatible with CDX and CDS model CD players, the HDX hard disk player and the DAC digital to analogue converter however.”
Otherwise you can plug it in next to but not connected to your 82/250, and wonder what it’s doing.
Sorry that was a bit flippant: it’s a power supply for Naim sources as mentioned above.
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I have the DR version on my NDX2 and the olive PS on my CDS2 is effectively another one.
Adding it to my NDX2 was a significant upgrade on what was already a good source.
What sources do you have?
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Audiolab transport with RME DAC plus Cambridge V2 Streamer.
More importantly, Purchased NAP 250 Olive recently, serviced fairly recently…Not a patch on my NAP 200DR.
Very disappointed, thought it would be a major upgrade. With the 250 i felt i was listening behind very thick curtains.
Have tried it for around 3 weeks with my NAC 82 Olive…switched back to 200 with immediate improvement in sound.
I don’t think that an XPS will help, given that. I also think that the 250 should be better than the 200 - serviced or not, it sounds like something is wrong somewhere.
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Have you checked the service history of the 250? It will need to have been recapped and serviced within the last 10 years, and there are plenty of old, unserviced or modified examples out there. Any 250 is technically superior to a 200, being a fully regulated design, although there are some who have preferred the quite different sound signature of the 200.
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A Seller would say… ‘serviced fairly recently’… 
When - and by whom…?
@ChrisSU makes some good points. An unserviced, out of spec 250 will sound rather off. Saying that, the Olive 250 and 200DR have quite different sound signatures (the 250 quite dark sounding compared to the more fleet of foot, 200) so you may just prefer the sound signature of the 200 in your particular setup, even though the 250 is the ‘better’ amp.
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Different ears, different systems…
To my old ears, a serviced olive 250 has as much foot-tapping, head-nodding boogie as almost anything. Not being fleet of foot’ or not very uplifting on (say) tricky piano or female vocals would be how I would describe the first stage of needing a service, before we get to stage 2 ( also a bit pedestrian/ leaden) or stage 3 (also harsh treble and flabby bass if you turn it up ). In my case, I didn’t understand how bad it has got until mine came back from Salisbury.
Mind you, I can imagine that both 140 and 200 might seem more bright and breezy simply because they don’t give as much at the bottom end, if you see what I mean. The ideal speakers and speaker position and the rest of the room might all change if swapping either for a 250.
I wasn’t there and didn’t hear it, and in any case what matters is how much it pleases or displeases the OP. The comment about relief swapping back to 200 just seems an odd enough result that I’d suggest checking all is well before reaching permanent conclusions.
It was serviced by Naim in 2015…Perhaps needs doing again.
Could possibly get class A at Sheffield to deal with it…ie another service general check over.
I really want the Nap 250 to be my ,last power amp…it certainly has strengths the 200 lacks…Just missing that boogie factor that gives me that emotional fix when listening to music.
That’s 8 years ago, so you are right on the cusp of the 8-10 year service interval for an olive 250. Fully regulated power amps are amazing things when working well, but as soon as something goes a bit “off” the performance can really suffer compared to an unregulated design. At the very least get it checked over as it definitely should not sound like your “listening behind very thick curtains” compared to your NAP200!
However, do note that the 250’s extra resolutions and wider bandwidth will ask much more of your source and pre compared to the 200; the 82/SC should be capable, the other bits I couldn’t say for sure, but be aware of this when making the comparison.
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