New NAP300DR - not a rant

My 300DR sounds absolutely satisfying too.

Yeah, my ears started burning 48 minutes before I wrote the post 

Gary, asking me a question is certainly not pestering me!  Feel free to ask whenever you want!

Morton,

Take a look on Naim's website. They are probably on there. 

Excellent!

I am reading this with interest whist I listen to my own setup - which I feel has not really achieved its full potential.  The system has been in storage for about a year, but since it was last fully running, I have moved rooms and replaced the bass speaker foam.  It is possibly not really properly run in, but I think I am struggling with my active setup.  I am runnig two 500s and one 300 (all pre DR).  I am looking for the least bad place to put the 300, but it seems to be problematic everywhere.  Given you went to such efforts to match your 300 DRs, I can really see why.

I really can't justify another 500 at the moment.  Replacing by last olive Supercap on the SNAXO with the latest DR spec is the cheaper option, but I am still left with the 300 problem.  I used to think the 300 on mid worked quite well, as the 500 on bass really added to the excitement, but  at slightly lower volume in a smaller room, the mid range disappoints...

...think I need to turn up the volume.

Remember that the NAP500 has 1dB more gain that all the other Naim power amps, including NAP300. You can check this on the Naim specifications of gain for the amps.

This means that the NAP300 will be a bit quieter - you will need to tweak the Snaxo to adjust it out. But in practice you may feel that 1dB is inaudible, or not - but the signature of the NAP500 is very different from the 300 - I tried to match them up Active and never got it to work right, wherever I put it.

Naim say to put the 500 on the HF, but I got best results with the 500 driving Bass.

DB.

I think I agree.  Last night I switched the 500 back on to the bass and left the 300 on mid.

got the 300DR couple of days ago,was better than 300 straight from the box!Plus,no buzzing from the transformer at all.Old one would occasionally sing with the fridge or whatever,it's on its way to be dr-er and serviced.Once it's back,i'm going active!

I'd be interested if you would explain what these figures mean and their relevance to sound performance.

When I started buying audio I used to check for the minimum of bad stuff and the maximum of good stuff but never ended up with any remotely useful conclusions.

[Obviously disingenuous - I once asked Roy George what objective measurements Naim now found useful in plotting development of improved amplification.

He was, understandably, reluctant to say but added that THD was completely useless and only measured because 'specifications' would look incomplete without it.]

But were seven words worth a picture?

(I ask myself)

i do not think that THD is useless, the thing is it corelates to other parameters of the amplifier, and that is why sometimes slightly poorer THD amps can sound a lot better than slightly better ones.

that's a load of money, a ton of money (again... if i reckon correctly, you would be one of the lucky few with a statement pre-amp).

sorry my asking, but what do you do for living, sir? you never know when a good idea comes and from where, maybe we can also find this "fountain" of ... gold, not youth

Is that banana even EU approved?  Internal curve radius looks outside agreed upon limits.

Whiskey Casket Lp12 and now Banana in a Linn advert.

What next, strawberries and cream ?

Cat burglar by night*...  By day I ... have worked in IT for 26 years.

* You wouldn't believe how many cats we now have at home.  Not sure I've quite got the hang of the night job.

Hi analogmusic,

the Banana ad is from the late eighties or early nineties, if I remember this right. Linn had at least three ads in this particular style. A mixing bowl was pictured in one of them, probaly with strawberries and cream inside .  My favourite one featured a red sofa and the advice to get one of these before investing in Hi-Fi. Perhaps someone can add a picture of that one?

To be honest I have no idea how to interpret these figures, I was rather hoping for enlightenment on the forum.

Since I made this post I have bought the current edition of Hi-Fi News which has a very positive review of the 250DR.

They do claim however that the S/N ratio of the original NAP 250 is better than the new DR version (102dB A-wtd S/N vs 95.3 dB), which does rather go against the reports on here that the noise floor of DR versions is now lower.

Maybe this just shows how irrelevant these figures are with respect to how the amp actually sounds.

When reading on here that people say that the noise floor is now lower I thought that I would have a look at the published specs. to see how much it had changed, & I could not find anything on the Naim web site.

This was done purely out of idle curiosity; I must have too much time on my hands.

From the 1980's

And even more.

interesting. Is there an equivalent Naim series of ads? Somehow I don't think Naim ever resorted to this level of being cheesy (especially the naked woman one).

The sister I married is a stupid ad. Come on we love hi-fi but no hi-fi is never a substitute for an attractive woman 

Anyway a bit ironic, that the very first time I heard Naim I knew I just had to have a Naim hi-fi, but heard Linn many times since, and never bought any except a Linn Sneaky that I sold off in a month (sounded boring to me)

As they say, if it sounds better (which Naim does to me) then it is better !

There was of course this famous range from Naim:

 Optonica had no such reservations.