Naim NAT01 and 101 tuners

The truth is that if you've been sold a 101 as an 01, you've been ripped off. The 101 was designed down to a cost and was about half or 2/3 the price of the 01. Presumably you paid about £300 instead of about £1000. Hopefully you'll have some recourse to rectifying this situation which doesn't involve baseball bats.

I think the design overall was simplified, power supply and all; the 101 is a very nice tuner but was reborn (bettered?) as the NAT02 which is obviously not in the same league as the 01.

When I was looking for a 101 (12 months ago), the going rate was about £400/£450.

Regards

Mick

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Can someone on the forum please explain to me whether there is a significant difference in sound quality between the NAT 01 and 101 tuners?

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Having had a (friend`s) 101 at home for several months , and now owning 2 x 01`s (my chrome bumpered `01 for nearly ten years now), I can say, IMHO, that whilst the 101 is very good, the 01 is clearly superior... a bit like comparing the 82 to a 52. The 01 does things that the 101 barely hints at IMHO

PS I think the tuning dial/display of the 101 is very quaint and a real conversation piece

As Chris suggests.....it depends how much you paid.

About 4 years ago my friend upgraded to an 01 and sold his 101 for about £350

Given the demand for the`01 now that it has been discontinued, I think you will be lucky to pick one up, of ANY vintage, for less than £1k

I have seen s/h 01s for an asking price of £1600....which is high considering that they were about £1850 when they ceased production, (about 2 years ago?)

Laurie S

I paid £400 for the 101 + SNAPS power supply. I thought I would be getting a bargain-basement 01, probably a clapped-out crome bumper model that would need to be sent back to Naim for servicing/updating.
In fact I got an 'olive green' model, which is a bonus. Nevertheless, I paid for something which was actually not what I thought I was buying.
Of course, I should have unpacked it and looked before handing over the money, but I trusted the seller. It may have been a genuine mistake; he claims he bought it as a 01.
Paul

Paul......you might consider upgrading the PSU..a tweaked Hicap will work....I understand that it only involves changing one or two resistors, to give the slightly different voltage required by the 101

From those that have done this, I have heard it is well worthwhile....contact Naim for more info


such a beast would be snapping at the heels of an 01, so I have been told

Laurie S

Paul - You say you got an 'Olive Green 101 model???
The Nat 101 / Snaps were only ever Chrome Bumpers. Not quite sure what you have got there!!! The 101 does sound nice though as I used to have one.

Is the Nat 01 still one of the best tuners arround and worth investing in then?

I am considering a new tuner and unfortunately where I will be living we are not supposed to have any kind of ariel on the outside of the house. Would the Nat 01 still sound good without an external ariel?


Regards


NB

I have a 101 which sounds lovely, significantly better than the highly rated Audiolab 8000T and the Naim 03. However it does need a good signal as does the 01. An 01 without a external roof ariel is somewhat like a Ferrari without wheels (I have a large Ron Smith Galaxy for the 101).

BTW Naim, in their catalogue of the time, describes the 101 thus
'our intention with the smaller NAT101 is to' make the fewest possible economies that affect real performance. RF circuitry is almost identical. Filtering has been simplified, but as in the 01, the decode switches progressively from mono to stereo according to the level of signal received....'

Paul: in your first post I would suspect the dealer you quoted was comparing a pre-'89 01 to the later model 01, no? In any case the 101 was the "budget" version of the 01, and was later replaced by the 02, so it couln't/shouldn't really be as good as an 01 - but see below.

I upgraded from an 03 to an 02 two years ago, and found the difference so incredible (even using cable instead of an aerial) that I immediately (and blindly) ordered an 01.

But (fed by cable) the 01 was actually not better (in any case not noticeably better) than the 02...

I of course assumed the problem was with the cable (and cable is certainly increasingly a problem, because the thing is here now used not only for TV and radio but also more and more for internet and telephone, which inter alia necessitates placing "signal amplifiers" just about everywhere - and even if you stick to a 'purist' approach of only using YOUR cable for TV and radio, your neighbours' choice will of course influence your reception!).

So I bought a Magnum Dynalab aerial (the one which costs around 200 EUR and is quite highly regarded), but there was still no improvement.

I live in what in Belgium is called a "valley" (which means I'm surrounded by "hills" of 100m high, and my Magnum Dynalab aerial is only about 10 m above the ground) so perhaps I need a "real" aerial to judge, but anyway, my experience is that upgrading from 03 to 02 (twice the price) is a no-brainer if you like to listen to radio, but that upgrading from 02 (ex-101) to 01 (again twice the price) really requires that you judge first ... at home, with a decent aerial.

Did anybody compare NAT101 and NAT02? Comparing to 02, is NAT101 benefital for the external PSU even its tuner header is simpifed?

As far as I know, the 101 was discontinued around the time that the change from chrome bumper to olive occurred. I did not think any olive 101s were ever made..at the time of the switch to olive, the 02 was introduced.An olive 101 might have been "facelifted" by Naim


I think that running any Naim tuner from anything other than a good (eg RS Galaxie 17) outside aerial would compromise its performance.

To the best of my knowledge, the 101 and 02 were fairly close in sound quality.

To repeat what i stated above, with a good aerial (above) the comprison between 01 and 101 is similar to comparing an 82 to a 52, in my experience

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BTW Naim, in their catalogue of the time, describes the 101 thus
'our intention with the smaller NAT101 is to' make the fewest possible economies that affect real performance. RF circuitry is almost identical. Filtering has been simplified, but as in the 01, the decode switches progressively from mono to stereo according to the level of signal received....'

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I think that you will find that the Naim catalogue also described the 02 using almost identical words

Laurie S

Paul,

I also don't understand how you got an olive green 101, but £400 for it is fine, anyway.

Hopefully fairly soon Naim will bring out a full-width, state-of-the art remote controlled preset analogue & digital tuner with added MW and LW.

Chris,
I asked Naim and they said the fascia hadn't been updated by them and 'may have been cosmetically "updated" by somebody other than the factory.'
Laurie,
Thanks for the info/advice. It has confirmed my belief that the 01 is sonically superior to the 101. What I can't understand is why someone at Naim HQ told the seller that there is little to choose between them, performance-wise. Everything I have ever heard about the 01 (even 'What Hifi' magazine) has always said it is one of, if not the finest tuner in the world.
Paul

Paul

"little" is a subjective term...it all depends on the system it was being used in...

For example, some would argue that there is no (or little) sonic difference between blank recordable CDs.

My experience is that the sonic differences are quite marked

etc etc

Laurie S

Simon...can you tell us whether the "hicap" upgrade gave improved sound, that you would consider worth the cost?

Laurie S

NAT 01 and cable

NB, I'm feeding my 01 with signals from cable, with very good results. Difference to former Sony ES model (not bad on it's own!) is HUGE.

There is a very clear difference in quality though, while some stations sound amazingly good others are quite terrible!

I have no chance for a decent outdoor aerial, it would have to be less than 3 m from ground with the 3 floor building right behind giving (I guess this would be worse than cable). But the cable here is maybe better than UK ??

Listening to the good stations on my cable I am very satisfied indeed.

Claus

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Originally posted by Bighead:
Did anybody compare NAT101 and NAT02? Comparing to 02, is NAT101 benefital for the external PSU even its tuner header is simpifed?

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Hi,

I bought an unserviced 12 yr. old 101+Snaps about four years ago, s/h from UK. Last year I bought a 5 yr. old NAT02 and compared them both. The 02 has some electronic haze, but is more solid, while the 101 sounds more natural but more like a good tube tuner, maybe a bit softer than 02. Naturally, I preferred the 101 and resold the 02. I guess it is the old chrome bumper vs. olive sound design difference. The 101 gives you the possibility to sit down and listen and enjoy, like most of the old chrome bumper stuff, while the 02 has some of the olive stuff's nastiness mostly found in the Nait 03 or the NAC 72.

In Germany, there are some folks who claim that the 101 is more like a 01 at half the price.

kind regards,
Hartmut