Naim, give us a preamp refresh!

exactly Harry

I am enjoying the tunes just fine on my 282/HCDR.

will I stop my music enjoyment in the wait for a new preamp range which may or may never be here. Never.

I already made my choice buying a 282 instead of a 272 with the new volume control.

music (for me) comes first, don't care much about the lights on the volume control or the range of it. 

If I had to "slum" it with a 20+ year old NAC42.5/110 I would gladly do it.

LOL "slumming it", no such thing with any naim actually.

"slumming" it is listening to music on the latest 9.1 channel AV amp which can't play a tune properly.

Woa  !

Still need analogue inputs here. CD ( very important) , sometimes two at once if comparing. Not meant to be ideal -I know,  I've heard this. Possible turntable in the future. Still got tape deck with lots of old treasured tapes too. Also connect an AV processor left/right into as part of a home cinema set up.

And  the NAC 52  sounds rather marvellous of course. The beating heart of my system.

I may go to a 552 a way down the line.

No need for all this digital input mularky. 

Ok , maybe one would be nice for my tv optical out stereo only.

Can feed this optical out into my old Benchmark though. Then into the 52. Probably sound better than most pre's with an internal Dac to boot.

Long live analogue inputs I say.

Right on. And for someone like Beefster above, the inevitable pensioning off of the current 552 dinosaur will create a wider choice for second hand stuff which at its price point will still be superb and possibly peerless. Just like the 52 is at the moment.

Those of us who are happy will stick. Those who have the need or illness will have a new solution or cure. Those who have been waiting for for things to descend can hold their arms out. Everyone wins, including those who do nothing, who strictly speaking will simply continue to win.

As one who uses Hugo direct into power amp, I agree up to a point - but many people have other sources that they want to be able to use through the HiFi, whether that be analog record players, or anything else (e.g fm radio, music keyboards etc). I nearly included digital as one of the other source types, but arguably if the basis is a high quality DAC with volume control, what is wanted is switchable inputs to the DAC to take, for example, the cd digital output - or outputs if two are used as one person said, and allow switching between them and any streaming source(s).

 In my case I have the annoyance of having to unplug the DAC from the power amp and swap to the preamp when I want to use other (analog) sources, with appropriate power down first, however that is a minor price to pay for the benefit of the direct DAC connection, given that I don't do it often.

In my experience a two box analog preamp always gives the biggest sonic upgrade in my systems over the years. I cannot understand how this extremely essential component can be taken out of the chain and not affect sound quality.

These arguments do get polarised - along comes the 272 with a new volume control - of which I was blissfully unaware! - and the old products are redundant.  Urm here I don't think so.

I tried the Hugo into a NAP 100, but somehow to me it sounds like a Naim power amp needs a naim preamp to sound at its best and vice versa, a naim preamp needs a naim poweramp

I reached that conclusion when running my DAC V1 into very good dynaudio active speakers, something was missing.

Hugo into a naim pre/power sounds very good

I wouldn't mind a full range volume control. The mechanical pots currently in use have a narrow range to say the least for many users. Was it the first Naits that had a full range volume control? Or maybe one of the early pre amps. Something did - but not for long. I read it in a HiFi magazine article some years ago. Apparently the full range knob went out of fashion across the industry because in showrooms it didn't make the amp seem powerful enough and it became more of a convention than an absolute necessity, even allowing for a multitude of input levels, of which there were many admittedly.

I think Linn have done very well and many of their strategic direction changes (including the odd publicity stunt) have played out well. Their control software is better than Naim's also. But the really big thing is the musical ability. Linn still provides it in spades. I slightly prefer Naim. Helen more strongly prefers Naim. So we're sticking. Personally I don't think Linn have lost the plot they are interested in and the sound quality has not suffered. We could happily go there if we had to. But we don't have to.

I thought it was because with the advent of digital sources, the input levels to pre-amp are often too high (at least, IIRC when I used to have a vinyl source, the volume contrl level for that was significantly higher than for CD source for the same acoustic level). Regardless, there needs to be headroom for someone playing at a high level in a larger room with less efficient speakers (within limits of general system compatibility and balance).

Technically, pre and power amplifiers as we know them are false distinctions: 

Essentially the amplifying chain is there to increase the magnitude of the original electrical signal to something with enough power to drive the loudspeaker, taking into account source and sink impedances. There are many actual stages of amplification in the electronic circuitry involved, each raising the signal by a certain amount. At some point a volume control is inserted to avoid everything going through with the same amount of gain, to give the listener control. This is usually at some intermediate signal level, balancing the negative aspects of different positions.

I guess it is bound to vary depending on what is being fed in to what. Back in 1979 my A+R A60 only needed to go to about 10 O'Clock to rattle my windows when fed with a MM cartridge or a cassette deck. When CD players arrived this nearly halved. I have never used an amp or auditioned one at home or played with one at a dealer since 1980 that required anywhere near 12 O'Clock for TT/MM/MC, open reel, cassette, CD or DAC. There must be combinations of sources and amps that require a big twist of the volume control to get going, I (or anyone I know) just haven't seen such a combination.

The 272 has a digitally controlled analogue volume control. The volume rises smoothly from 0 to 100, so it's much easier to make small adjustments, rather than reaching virtually full volume by 11 o'clock on the other preamps. The volume control is just like that used on the SuperUniti and V1, and presumably on the Statement. It really is a delight to use. 

^ what he said.

The volume pot on my 552 is nearly a case of all or nothing. On out Mu-Sos it's so easy to make slight adjustments and it feels much slicker and nicer to use manually.

Naim - like just about everyone else I believe use logarithmic potentiometers (whether analogue or digital) for volume, ie the resistance changes a smaller amount at low volume and higher amounts at higher volume. If it was linear it would be even harder to control at low level. Volume changes logarithmically not linearly.

In effect what t his is saying is either that the preamp output seems to be too high for the given input (whether that is because the source output is higher than the rated level of the input, or the gain of the preamp is too great), or the power amp gain is too great.

One thing that has happened over the years is a tendency towards higher powered power amps ( or maybe that's the process of an amplifier upgrade path. But rather than being a statement of the maximum power an amp can give, power amp output power rating is most commonly is stated for a reference input level ( from the preamp), typically between 0.5V and 1v depending on the manufacturer. So a more powerful amp generally will have more gain not simply more 'headroom' than a less powerful amp (i.e. it will amplify more) .  If the rest of the system is the same, that will require the volume control setting to be lower for the same sound level.

Ideally a single-turn volume control should allow smooth graduation from the lowest listening levels, to the highest that it might reasonably be anticipated anyone would use an anticipatable pre-power combination, so one might expect "typical" listening levels, whatever that is, to be somewhere around the middle of the range, I.e around 12 o'clock. So maybe higher powered hifi power amps (as opposed to those used for PA systems where the extra power is wanted as extra volume) should have reduced gain, still giving the desired headroom but letting the volume control -and preamp - behave as designed. Some pro power amps do that with input gain controls to allow custom setting.

So there we have it! A 252 level, shoebox sized analogue preamp with digital control and just one input. Design by committee is a wonderful thing. 

That's not what I voted for. Committee functioning normally then.

That's right, this is democracy in action. Prepare to be disappointed. And as for that snazzy volume control, it would be an optional extra in a separate box - complete with its own NAPSC.