Speaking of spare outputs

Posted by: Stephen Bennett on 27 July 2001

What are the extra outs on a hi-cap for? Could you use one to power a CD 3.5?

regards

Stephen

Posted on: 27 July 2001 by Mike Hanson
Yes, those are for power-amps. Naim frowns upon bi-amping, because at the very least it puts an extra load on the pre-amp, lessens its performance a bit. In the case of 135s, each amp is connected to only one channel.

I actually drive my headphones using one of those spare *-cap sockets. However, I find that the 250 and headphones cannot be run at the same time, without adversely affecting performance. Of course, headphones are a somewhat strange load for a pre-amp, but it does reaffirm the detrimental aspect of bi-amping (from the perspective of pre-amp load).

You must also consider that having an extra power amp to drive your speakers can have beneficial aspects, so in the end it may be better with bi-amping (two steps forward, one step back). Contrary to this, Naim usually suggests that one superior amp is better than bi-amping with two inferior amps. Ultimately, you won't know until you try it for yourself.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-