Nap 300 Service?

Wait, save up and have the 300 serviced and dr upgraded at the same time.

I don,t think Class A can currently service a DR or upgrade to DR. Some clarity on this would help forum members.....my one and only contact on my 250dr was......disappointing, I never got a clear answer. I decided to leave it to NAim, resold in the nd.

Gazza posted:

I don,t think Class A can currently service a DR or upgrade to DR. Some clarity on this would help forum members.....my one and only contact on my 250dr was......disappointing, I never got a clear answer. I decided to leave it to NAim, resold in the nd.

I stated quite clearly that DRing wasn't an option and so my mention of Class A was purely in connection with a service not a DR as it has been common knowledge on the forum that only Naim can carry out this DR re work and I have say I have had contact with Darran at Class A twice with enquiries and he replied both times within a day and was extremely business like and informative and when I do have the funds I will have no hesitation but to use him.

If you’re wondering if it will increase the power output, I suspect not, though potentially if the reservoir caps are knackered  transient power may be reduced and could be restored. Perhaps this particular aspect is something others might like to comment on.

Innocent Bystander posted:

If you’re wondering if it will increase the power output, I suspect not, though potentially if the reservoir caps are knackered  transient power may be reduced and could be restored. Perhaps this particular aspect is something others might like to comment on.

IB I'm with you on this I do believe the 300 is underpowered with my speakers and in my room hopefully the service may help a little but I think the next party I have a second hand Nad C370 or an old Technics war horse maybe more the ticket with these speakers.

Yes, at a party absolute sound quality ceases to be paramount, whereas remaining audible is, so a lesser quality amp with more power might indeed be an answer - as long as speakers can cope with the power, and the amp isn’t driven into clipping. It is easier to have another amp for the occasional party, than another pair of speakers. Of course an alternative could be speakers that have greater sensitivity and sound great for serious listening, but as you say it is a challenging task finding speakers that sound right, to you, in your room. Another alternative is a more powerful amp, but aside from the significant cost if you want that to be Naim, bear in mind that twice the amp power is only 3dB louder. 

When Darran serviced my NAP250's they came back sounding clearer, less background noise and just generally better in all respects.
If your 300 is due a service based on its age, I believe it's money well spent.
Then, in another 7-10 years, if you're able to, that might be the time for the next service and to go DR if that floats your boat.

If the 300 fails like the 250 does when it absolutely needs service then you get a sudden loss of quality, rough sound and no power-handling. They both use regulated supplies to feed the regulator and need a low ripple-voltage from healthy DC smoothing caps - when the latter wear-out the ripple increases then everything downstream fails more and more. In extreme cases you hear the amp buzzing - that is what happened with my 250 and it was well-past need of service (at 15 years) which sorted all that out.

If the 300 has not been serviced for 10 years then you could be getting problems. I've no direct experience with the 300 but certainly the 250 had sudden-onset of problems once the requirements for the internal DC regulators could not be maintained due to age of components.

DB.