Bi-amping with Naim
Posted by: David Patterson on 29 July 2002
I have recently managed to aquire a 250 power amp of the same vintage as my original system 250. Both are bolt together models 200serial nos appart.The sound with one is just fine, on adding the second amp i got an immediate improvement in punch seperation etc,but after returning to the system after 24 hours the sound had become lean and lacking bass, swapping leads to base and treble makes no difference ie one amp is not stonger in the base dept. Any ideas where i am going wrong ,or will it never work due to Naim amp design.
Regards
David
Posted on: 29 July 2002 by Jim Ashton
David I've no idea what your problem is but I've been driving my Ruark Accolades tri-amped with 3 250s for over 10 years now and they still sound just great (in fact even better since recent re-capping). Mine are a little later than yours - extruded case but old cosmetics.
HTH Jim
Posted on: 29 July 2002 by JosephR
quote:
Originally posted by Jim Ashton:
David I've no idea what your problem is but I've been driving my Ruark Accolades tri-amped with 3 250s for over 10 years now and they still sound just great (in fact even better since recent re-capping). Mine are a little later than yours - extruded case but old cosmetics.
HTH Jim
How do you bi-amp (or tri-amp) i.e. how do you connect them to the preamp ? How's the connection configurations ?
Posted on: 29 July 2002 by Jim Ashton
You can only do it if you're using a HiCap (or FlatCap - or SuperCap, presumably) - which you need anyway with 250s. The power supply has duplicate output DINs for bi-/tri-amping.
Actually I seem to remember my HiCap needed a small mod for the tri-amp situation, but this may no longer be the case.
Jim
Posted on: 30 July 2002 by David Patterson
Thanks for the vote of confidence in what i am trying, To give furtherinfo the two amps run from hicap.Acouple of points i have since discovered, the second amp i added had the wrong internal fuse(not naim antisurge,prob very minor),the second run of cable was brand new plus i do not know if it matters but as speakers are either side of system cable runs together with one loop to take up slack.One amp has older caps, but as the sound had become leaner(less bass) no matter what amp is connected to bass i did not think this was the cause. Ihave set it up to try again.Any other ideas out there, i Know Naim do not like IT ,but i do not know why!
Regards
David
Posted on: 30 July 2002 by Mike Hanson
quote:
Is it really a case of lacking bass? Or has the bass got tighter
I'm voting for this one myself. When a 250 is first turned off (especially after a long time being off), it can be a bit lead-footed and sloppy. Once it's been on for a couple of hours, it tightens right up. (The 135s are even more this way, which is probably why
some prefer 250s over 135s.)
Keep running them for a while. I suspect that the sound will grow on you.
-=> Mike Hanson <=-
