NAP 200 vs. NAP 200 DR

catalinmetal, just enjoying the debate, I do enjoy reading your posts a lot.

Don't hold back any opinion just because of me, nothing personal at all, in fact in a roundabout way I do agree with many of your postings. 

Dayjay that is very interesting post, about the 250 DR being the standout, what did you like about it?

catalinmetal posted:

totemphile posted:

best_jerry posted:

I'm using 202/HCDR/200, as I already had HCDR, anyone know if I upgrade to 200DR will further improve ?

No it will not! Waste of money.

whether is a waste of money only the OP can decide. but with the first statement i do not agree! the step from 200 to 200DR will show improvement in SQ.

for the record, have you ever heard the 2 amps side by side?

thanks for an honest aswer...

No I haven't. But the Naim marketing blurb says, and I quote:

"The NAP 200 does not use the new NA009 transistors as it would not benefit from the extra current handling and other advantages they offer to higher performance power amplifiers. The NAP 200 also does not use regulated rails for the power amplifier section. It does however provide power to the attached preamplifier. This power supply is now upgraded to a DR module identical that can be found in the Hi-Cap power supply. Now the preamplifier will enjoy the low noise benefits without using an external DR power supply."

So, if your plan is to use a 202/200 without a HCDR, then by all means the 200DR ought to be an upgrade. However, I would still stick with the 200 and get a HCDR instead. If, you owned a 202/HCDR/200, then there really isn't much point in changing your 200 for a 200DR. Rather than getting a 200DR your money would be better spent elsewhere. Just as an aside, I would never run a bare 202/200 or 200DR, I'd always get a HCDR and NAPSC. Otherwise what's the point of going pre/power in the first place, if you are willing to run your system way below what it is capable of - for a relatively small increase in investment?

IMHO

analogmusic posted:

catalinmetal, just enjoying the debate, I do enjoy reading your posts a lot.

Don't hold back any opinion just because of me, nothing personal at all, in fact in a roundabout way I do agree with many of your postings. 

Dayjay that is very interesting post, about the 250 DR being the standout, what did you like about it?

 

 

I'm not great at describing these things, lack the voocabulary but I felt it had a good chunk of the grip of the 300 but had a lovely and lively sparkle to it.  Good soundstage and a nice sense of realism to instrument.  Obviously the 300dr had this too and more but for vfm the 250dr did it for me.  Personally I prefer it to the non dr 300 in that system

totemphile makes a very good point, that the naim preamps which do not have a built in power supply really benefit from a PSU like HCDR.

when the 202/200 are connected together, and I switch off the NAP 200, the light goes out almost straight away and the capacitors discharge in a second.

With 200 powering only itself and the HCDR powering the 202, switch off the 200, and it takes a fairly long time for the light to swtich off and then the the capacitors to discharge (that's when the hear the small pop sound on the speakers0

So the preamp does draw a fair amount of power, and giving it a dedicated PSU does wonders for the music.

totemphile posted:

catalinmetal posted:

totemphile posted:

best_jerry posted:

I'm using 202/HCDR/200, as I already had HCDR, anyone know if I upgrade to 200DR will further improve ?

No it will not! Waste of money.

whether is a waste of money only the OP can decide. but with the first statement i do not agree! the step from 200 to 200DR will show improvement in SQ.

for the record, have you ever heard the 2 amps side by side?

thanks for an honest aswer...

No I haven't.

that's the correct answer for me! the rest is just assumption... and it's widely known that assumption is the mother of all f..ups

on the other hand, also on Naim's 200DR page, the presentation tells that, along with converting the preamp PSU to DR spec, other changes have been done to the layout and some components... i seem to hear those changes, as does Frank Abela and some others...

dayjay posted:

Hm, I've heard the 200dr, 250dr and 300dr back to back with their non dr brethren in the same, good quality system, and the 250dr was the stand out performer to me. 

very nice that you could back-to-back them in the same setup!

while i haven't heard the 300DR yet, i think that the new 250DR standout difference from the 250.2 is that the non-DR 250 was a bit colored... had a somewhat forced "fatter" tonality, and somehow a slightly slower tempo, apparently (many have noticed this and preferred the older 200 even with the fabled 282, instead of using the 250.2)

while the older 200 had a tonal coloration on it's own, was less visible - to me at least - to the one in the bigger amp... but the 250.2 was more refined and more dynamic, nonetheless, and since i really hated the older 200 in certain combinations, dued to it's dry tone coloration, i favored a lot more the colouration of the 250.2.

now, at DR gen, the 200 and 250 sound in the same direction, the only diffference i noticed was actually the result of lower noise floor... which led to make some details more visible on 250DR than on 200DR.

and probably with a more demanding speaker, the lower end control would have been visibly better with the 250DR than with 200DR, but on Ovator S400, it was not the case, both amps control the lower freqs in rather similar manner. the only difference comes from upper range lower order harmonics of some bass instruments, thing that has all to do with better SN ratio (a lower noise floor).

but now i have found a trick that brings the decreasing in noise floor to the 200DR to a comparable level to a bare 250DR: the PS Audio AC-12 cable. on the moment i cannot think listening to the 200DR without this power cable!

Nice feedback Catalinmetal. Can you please explain which combinations in your sentence " i really hated the older 200 in certain combinations ".