nap 300 dr

Iam hoping to upgrade my 202 next year to a 252 that should be a good jump 

Aceone posted:

Iam hoping to upgrade my 202 next year to a 252 that should be a good jump 

That is an excellent idea, and if I had my time again I would also have leap-frogged the 282 and would have gone from 202 to 252. BUT, and there is a but, some on here prefer the exuberance of the 282 over the silky and revealing 252, including Mike (MDS) if I am not mistaken who auditioned the 252 twice and decided to stick with his 282 (and eventually went straight to a 552).

So you might want to take the time to listen to both the 252 AND 282. If you, like some others on here, prefer the 282, you could save yourself a few bob. The 252 also requires a Supercap whereas the 282 is quite happy with a Hicap (preferably DR).

Just saying.

As for me, I am quite happy with 252/250DR but if I were to upgrade, next step would be 300DR. But I wonder if a 552 would work with my 250DR. Now there's a thought!

Iam running my 202 with a supercap mk2 already  that made a big difference on my 202 

The 252 is a superb match with the 300. They go very well together. We ran them very happily and it was only later that an opportunity to get a 552 came up. 552/300 is insanely good, but as Mike says above, for an insane cost. Not that you can't justify it but it's still more than many people would spend on a car.

I would rather have a nice hifi than a car I get more enjoyment out of a hifi 

Aceone posted:

I would rather have a nice hifi than a car I get more enjoyment out of a hifi 

Absolutely, not having a super bike has been my justification for spending on hifi for years.  Although I'm expecting to pull the trigger on a Harley Sports in the new year

Well I'm experiencing just the opposite. I've done the Dr upgrade on my 300 and I'm very disappointed by it. It sounds shut in and with lots of siblence. The 300 sounds much better before the upgrade. The 552dr helped but it still sounds wrong especially after warming up. I've brought up my concerns to my dealer and he reckons it's part of the running in process. 

Aceone posted:

I would rather have a nice hifi than a car I get more enjoyment out of a hifi 

why not have both

never was a Bentley fan even though I worked for them and Audi for years but however I do have my Naim gear and my AMG Mercedes

wenger2015 posted:

Laxton Yeo posted:

Well I'm experiencing just the opposite. I've done the Dr upgrade on my 300 and I'm very disappointed by it. It sounds shut in and with lots of siblence. The 300 sounds much better before the upgrade. The 552dr helped but it still sounds wrong especially after warming up. I've brought up my concerns to my dealer and he reckons it's part of the running in process. 

LY..How long has the 300dr been running in?

The 300dr is running about 2 months now and the 552dr one month.

Nick from Suffolk posted:

Whilst my 300 was away to be DR'd I borrowed a well run-in one from my dealer. I was surprised that my upgraded 300 did not sound fantastically different from the 300 that I had borrowed.

Neither the dealer-loaned 300 DR nor my freshly DR'd one could be described as sounding shut-in nor sibilant. Both opened up the music and supplied a degree of control that I had not been aware was lacking in the system.

Nick, do you mean the freshly upgraded 300dr was the same as the well run in 300? Did the 300dr improve with time?

LY..I would have expected a considerable improvement by now, this is a 'head scratcher' ..

Laxton Yeo posted:

Well I'm experiencing just the opposite. I've done the Dr upgrade on my 300 and I'm very disappointed by it. It sounds shut in and with lots of siblence. The 300 sounds much better before the upgrade. The 552dr helped but it still sounds wrong especially after warming up. I've brought up my concerns to my dealer and he reckons it's part of the running in process. 

LY..How long has the 300dr been running in?

Laxton Yeo posted:

Well I'm experiencing just the opposite. I've done the Dr upgrade on my 300 and I'm very disappointed by it. It sounds shut in and with lots of siblence. The 300 sounds much better before the upgrade. The 552dr helped but it still sounds wrong especially after warming up. I've brought up my concerns to my dealer and he reckons it's part of the running in process. 

That does sound strange. Especially after running in for a couple of months. When I heard the 300DR at [@mention:50422349809511500]s I was amazed at how good it sounded straight from the box. 

I take it you don't use any kind of mains conditioning and/or unusual mains block [@mention:7902617949882860]? 

Whilst my 300 was away to be DR'd I borrowed a well run-in one from my dealer. I was surprised that my upgraded 300 did not sound fantastically different from the 300 that I had borrowed.

Neither the dealer-loaned 300 DR nor my freshly DR'd one could be described as sounding shut-in nor sibilant. Both opened up the music and supplied a degree of control that I had not been aware was lacking in the system.

Finkfan posted:

Laxton Yeo posted:

Well I'm experiencing just the opposite. I've done the Dr upgrade on my 300 and I'm very disappointed by it. It sounds shut in and with lots of siblence. The 300 sounds much better before the upgrade. The 552dr helped but it still sounds wrong especially after warming up. I've brought up my concerns to my dealer and he reckons it's part of the running in process. 

That does sound strange. Especially after running in for a couple of months. When I heard the 300DR at [@mention:50422349809511500]s I was amazed at how good it sounded straight from the box. 

I take it you don't use any kind of mains conditioning and/or unusual mains block [@mention:7902617949882860]? 

Yes it's really strange indeed. The 300dr upgrade was done at the factory. I've no mains conditioner or filters and I'm using a dedicated spur. All mains power cords are powerline.

LY, I assume you have checked all the connections? possibly a good idea to unplug everything and reconnect anyway ...

Laxton, sorry to hear that. Oddly enough, last few days I've got exactly the same problem with my rig. shut-in and sibilant, colourless, grainy, stuck in the speakers. I'd liken it to listening to an FM radio station where the tuning dial hasn't quite been set correctly. The last 2 nights has been so bad I've had to walk away and go watch TV. Unlistenable.

Interestingly, what our systems share in common is the very recent introduction of a 552DR (mine is a March 2015 built, dealer ex-dem, but by the dealers admission they'd played it very little so it wasn't really run-in I think). I've had the 552 at home for nearly 4weeks now and played it 4hours a day or so. Initial sound was pretty poor, but only took a few days to start doing special things. Now the system sounds broken.

I've tried a CD player in place of my NDS, but same result, so it's not the source.

I'm also going to borrow my dealers 300DR next week to check the power amp since my 500 is now 13 years without a service. It could of course be the cause, but the timing just seems a bit coincidental unless the wider window from 552 has triggered its demise? Anyway, I'll know more next week.

So, given your having very similar troubles I really wonder if it may be preamp related. I was expecting peaks and troughs, but never for the system to be unlistenable. Interesting. 

Laxton Yeo posted:

Well I'm experiencing just the opposite. I've done the Dr upgrade on my 300 and I'm very disappointed by it. It sounds shut in and with lots of siblence. The 300 sounds much better before the upgrade. The 552dr helped but it still sounds wrong especially after warming up. I've brought up my concerns to my dealer and he reckons it's part of the running in process. 

If you are certain the 300DR is causing this (you have made no other changes to your system) and it has been running for two months, I would begin thinking in terms of getting Naim to take it back and check it. My first 552 didn't do the kind of magic I had heard when listening to other units previously. They rebuilt it and now it does.

You have a dealer in the loop so all will be well, one way or another, in due course.

Aceone posted:

Iam running my 202 with a supercap mk2 already  that made a big difference on my 202 

Well as you already have a Supercap, it makes the argument to go from a 202 straight to a 252 a little stronger. I ran a 282 on a Supercap and enjoyed it, then onto a 252.

I would still listen to a 282 AND a 252 if you can before deciding though.

greekspec2 posted:

never was a Bentley fan even though I worked for them and Audi for years but however I do have my Naim gear and my AMG Mercedes

A fabulous combination.  

nigelb posted:

Aceone posted:

Iam running my 202 with a supercap mk2 already  that made a big difference on my 202 

Well as you already have a Supercap, it makes the argument to go from a 202 straight to a 252 a little stronger. I ran a 282 on a Supercap and enjoyed it, then onto a 252.

I would still listen to a 282 AND a 252 if you can before deciding though.

Very much agree with Nigel's advice here.  The 282 and 252 have different presentations and many on here tend to like one or the other. 

I will demo both preamps just to make sure my 300dr is sounding better just after aday 

Laxton Yeo posted:

Well I'm experiencing just the opposite. I've done the Dr upgrade on my 300 and I'm very disappointed by it. It sounds shut in and with lots of siblence. The 300 sounds much better before the upgrade. The 552dr helped but it still sounds wrong especially after warming up. I've brought up my concerns to my dealer and he reckons it's part of the running in process. 

Something is awry there. The running-in thing can be overstated and we can all be guilty of hyperbole when we hear an improvement (or indeed the reverse). My DR'd 500 was musically enjoyable from about ten minutes into the get-go and I could hear it doing lots of stuff better than its pre-DR'd incarnation.

Then it gradually got better over the next few months - albeit with a few bumps in the road. Nick's experience with a DR'd 300 chimes with my own. The run-in difference should not be that big. We of the forum are the lunatic fringe. New Naim kit has to do a thoroughly satisfying job for the majority of its customers, from day one.

There is of course always the danger that something better in the chain, exposes something else which is weak in the chain. The DR'd amps certainly open the window.

Good luck with getting things sorted to your satisfaction.

John.

My 300DR did its run-in when used with a 282/SCDR. I found the run-in experience fairly shallow. e.g. it sounded good from the off, got a little 'cold' mid run-in, and then the performance re-emerged at a slightly higher level than at the start.  Never remotely became unlistenable. Maybe I'm lucky or a bit deaf but I wouldn't put what Laxton Yeo describes as down to run-in.