Naim 52 PS Recap-Burn In

Posted by: mikeybaby on 14 September 2016

Just had my 52PS recapped yesterday. Original 1991 caps were leaking and sounded screechy. But I am surprised at the minimal improvement. I was expecting grand things.  Does anyone know how long the caps take to burn in? Will the sound smooth out?

Posted on: 14 September 2016 by Richard Dane

Was it a proper full service by Naim?  Did they do the head unit as well?  

Posted on: 14 September 2016 by mikeybaby

Yes it was. No just the power supply.

Posted on: 14 September 2016 by mikeybaby

30 hrs of burn in so far and the sound is smoothing out! Sounding very good already.

Posted on: 14 September 2016 by feeling_zen

The 52 is still one of the finest preamps out there. Given the age I would have the head unit serviced too. Naim test and tweak a lot of parts and the results can be well worth it. I would be surprised if they did not find the odd bit that had drifted from spec.

Posted on: 15 September 2016 by Foot tapper

+1.  Having both serviced at the same time worked very well for this user.

Fortunately, the 52 service costs far less than servicing the power supply.

Best regards, FT

Posted on: 15 September 2016 by MNn

I took me at least a couple of weeks with day and night playing

It did sound terrible from time to time before that.

Posted on: 15 September 2016 by mikeybaby

Very helpful. Many thanks!

Posted on: 15 September 2016 by Foot tapper

Mikeybaby,

In all seriousness, if your NAC52 is also of 1991 vintage, I would recommend getting it serviced smartish.

Naim replaced a lot (several dozen) small components in my NAC52 when it was serviced.  It is not just the big electrolytic capacitors in the power supply that age.

If your NAC52 is of a much younger vintage (i.e. under 15 years old) of has been serviced in the meantime, then by all means disregard my comments above.

Hope this helps, FT

Posted on: 15 September 2016 by Christopher_M

Not forgetting Pots 8, which I've read about here.

C.

Posted on: 15 September 2016 by Geko

Just had my Supercap and 52 serviced. I reckon a good 3 to 4 weeks before you get finely etched quality that this combination can deliver. Initially it sounded good but a bit soft and dull. Then, week by week it slowley opened up. I have my 555PS being serviced but would say that the system is now at the same level without the 555PS as it was unserviced, so I'm really eager to see where the PS now takes it?

Posted on: 15 September 2016 by mlauner

My XPS took 3 days to come on song after complete rebuild by A/V Options. Very lackluster at first but gradually improved.

Posted on: 16 September 2016 by Mr Happy

It will start to sound better within a couple of weeks, then for a couple more weeks it will change quite a bit (mostly for the better, although there will be good and bad days). It can take many months to fully settle and stop changing completely. This has been my experience with burn in of various naim kit anyhow.

Posted on: 19 September 2016 by Christopher_M

How does it sound now Mikey?

C.