2 Better than 1 -BUT be carefull
Posted by: Geoff P on 27 November 2003
The current debate about how the power is distributed inside an 82 or 282 connected to 2 HiCaps has established that it's i HiCap per channel AND warning comments about using "matched" HiCaps because of this have been raised.
I have a 1993 HiCap & a 2000 HiCap which were driving my 282. I say were becasue not any more.
Using the 2000 HiCap standalone on the 282 is noticeably better for the depth and detail in the music.
The older HiCap is not wasted though because I am now running my Stageline from it which has brought 2 benefits. Removing the burden of powering the Stageline from the 282 gave a second small but noticeable lift to the total sound impression from the 282 (listening to CD). And of course the quality of Vinyl replay has gone up quite noticeably through the old HiCap.
So for me the lesson is test for the best way to use the power supplies. I know I could send off the old HiCap to Naim for a re-cap (a little more costly from over here), but then they the two still would'nt be a perfect match.
This raises a few points:
If you want to drive an 82 or 282 from a pair of HiCaps how closely do they really need to be matched to show an improvement over using 1?
If you have the choice between using 2 matched Hicaps to drive the 82 or 282 or using 1 to drive the pre-amp and the other to drive a stageline, which is likely to be the best approach?
How good a job does NAIM have to do of matching the 2 Supercap power outputs to ensure you reap the full benefit when driving an 82 or 282 and get better performance than 2 "matched" HiCaps would give?
GEOFF
I have a 1993 HiCap & a 2000 HiCap which were driving my 282. I say were becasue not any more.
Using the 2000 HiCap standalone on the 282 is noticeably better for the depth and detail in the music.
The older HiCap is not wasted though because I am now running my Stageline from it which has brought 2 benefits. Removing the burden of powering the Stageline from the 282 gave a second small but noticeable lift to the total sound impression from the 282 (listening to CD). And of course the quality of Vinyl replay has gone up quite noticeably through the old HiCap.
So for me the lesson is test for the best way to use the power supplies. I know I could send off the old HiCap to Naim for a re-cap (a little more costly from over here), but then they the two still would'nt be a perfect match.
This raises a few points:
If you want to drive an 82 or 282 from a pair of HiCaps how closely do they really need to be matched to show an improvement over using 1?
If you have the choice between using 2 matched Hicaps to drive the 82 or 282 or using 1 to drive the pre-amp and the other to drive a stageline, which is likely to be the best approach?
How good a job does NAIM have to do of matching the 2 Supercap power outputs to ensure you reap the full benefit when driving an 82 or 282 and get better performance than 2 "matched" HiCaps would give?
GEOFF