£10k to spend - on what ?

I would suggest auditioning Dave. You’re used to not having a Naim preamp, so Dave direct i to the power amp would certainly be worth hearing. (Dave will be perfectly fine with the NAP300’s impedance, and it does have a high frequency filter, which I understand is needed with Naim power amps to prevent problems.)

For me Dave was a literal ‘wow’ factor: I already had Hugo, and had just auditioned TT against it,  then came Dave. My cellist son was sitting next to me, and just a few bars i to the first piece he uttered a low ‘wow’, exactly echoing my own feeling. We looked at each other, hardly able to believe how fantastic it sounded. A follow-up audition of TT and Dave at home, mainly trying to convince myself TT was good enough, and my wife in the adjoining room asked why I was bothering, when ‘that one’ sounds so much better.

An alternative of course could be change the speakers, £10k bringing a lot of possibilities especially if you include looking secondhand or ex-dem - but a mommoth exercise to decide what to hear and do the essential auditions.

I would not buy a new 272   ......  its a fine bit of kit when combined with the 555ps.

As for mortgage, at present mortgage lending is cheap, and presumably the OP has done the sums and has decided it is the right thing to do - my only caution there is, are you protected if the mortgage rate were to suddenly jump skywards (I remember only too well 15% (and once iirc  it went up to 18%, though I was insulated from that one with a fixed rate - itself something like 10%)

No response from the OP - so I guess he now has all the Hi-Fi suggestions, marriage guidance counselling, and financial planning advice he needs!

Hi all, OP here. Thank you indeed for all your suggestions. Plenty to consider there.

I am working so have only skimmed through them and this is just a quick response to say thanks.

Also, probably going in to too much detail, I got a mortgage to buy my ex-partner out of our family home where I only plan to live temporarily before downsizing (when the kids are older). The price is depressed at the moment as the builder is still building new homes in our neighbourhood, so I reckon the outlook for the house value is good and coupled with low mortgage rates (1.34%) and a profitable rental property in London, I didn’t mind borrowing £10k more than I technically needed to ‘treat’ myself :-)

Spend a third on booze, a third on fast women and squander the rest.????

analogmusic posted:

Well there’s always an old 82 with a hicap and chord qutest dac

thats what I would do 

sell the v1 keep the Fraim and get some really nicer speakers 

Excellent suggestion !!

+1

fatcat posted:

Spend a third on booze, a third on fast women and squander the rest.????

Why fast?

'fat'?

Well there are lots of suggestions here - quite a few suggesting a dedicated Naim streamer, or a Naim pre-amp, or both in the form of N272. Perhaps you are right - though in an effort to economise on hardware that I (perhaps mistakenly) deemed not absolutely essential for decent SQ - by which I mean either technically not absolutely required, or significantly cheaper alternatives available which may do nearly as good a job, meaning on a ‘bang for buck’ basis my money would be better spent elsewhere - I had decided to forego a proper streamer and instead use a Mac Mini, and forego a proper pre-amp altogether, relying on the digital preamp in the DAC-V1. Perhaps an approach may of you will fundamentally disagree with, but it allowed me to buy the NAP300DR which I intend to keep. So with that approach still in my mind I was minded to look at eg. a DAC upgrade, or rack. 

But you are right of course - get down to my dealer and audition a few options. I did have the 282 at home for quite some time, and I did have a jaw-dropping ‘Wow’ moment when I stuck a Supercap DR on it in place of the HiCap but I ended up choosing what I have.

So maybe it’s time to put a decent pre-amp in there, or streamer, instead of going for a top of the line DAC and carrying on without those components.

I would audition all suggestions, consult a dealer for more options and definitely wait to auction the new streamers before parting with cash.

Good luck

OP here.

Thanks for all your suggestions. As a starting point I’m going to audition two options :- 

1. Chord Qutest to replace the DAC-V1, and put a (possibly pre-loved) 282 / Supercap in there. Pre-loved pre-amp would leave a few grand over for further spend, possibly Fraim or cabling once the above bedded in. (I’ve had a 282 at home before, and swapping the HCDR for a SCDR was a real step up for me, so I’ve decided SCDR is a must for the 282)

2. Chord DAVE for DAC and pre-amp duties.

But I am also intrigued by the pre-loved 552 suggestion, should I be able to get one of those for £10k.

I will report back. Thanks again you knowledgeable Naim people.

(edit - I also plan to put a dedicated mains feed in)

And - later on and when funds allow - perhaps look at putting a proper streamer in there

Do what your ears tell you to do. Mine would go for a 252 and NDS. The latter is likely to be available used in significant quantities after the ND555 launches, and will sound just as good after the ND555 launches as it does today - which is fantastic. I'll wager it's also a good match for the 252/300. Your speakers don't work in my lounge. But they worked brilliantly at the dealer and if they work in your room I expect  they sound wonderful.

552 also goes very well with the 300. This is one you can't fail with.  It works so well that you wonder why anyone needs a 500, until you hear a 552 with a 500! Personally, I'd upgrade the source as a priority. Whilst this is mainly manifest in the streamer/DAC, I regard the pre as a (lesser but still significant) part of the source components. And the 252 is a very good amp at its price point. 

Will99 posted:

OP here

edit - I also plan to put a dedicated mains feed in

That should make a significant improvement to the sound quality of the Mac Mini. ????

Re: your options; carts and horses or crap in crap out springs to mind but hey it's not my money.

What do I know about it anyway.

Dave

Dedicated mains may or may not make a difference, depending on the setup (i.e. depending on what your mains supply and wiring are like, and what else is connected), and no reason why it should improve the Mac Mini more than han other components - but it certainly won’t do any harm, and depending on the property construction and layout need not be very expensive.

Will99 posted:

And - later on and when funds allow - perhaps look at putting a proper streamer in there

Actually, I don’t think you’ve stated what renderer you use? I’ve sort of assumed it is Audirvana, and set up fully optimised, but if not then indeed that may be an area for early improvement. I don’t know about the DAC V1’s usb input, but Dave is pretty impervious to RF from the source, arguably the most significant cause of deterioration in sound quality from sources not purpose-built to prevent/remove it.

I did a brief comparison of MM/Audirvana against Melco N1A into Dave (through Bryston amp and PMC Fact 12 speakers) and disn’t detect any difference (it was only a quick comparison, so I can’t say there was definitely no difference at all). If I wanted to replace my MM/A I’d audition Melco thoroughly, and also try Innuos Zenith, amongst others - but I’d tend to keep to the model of avoiding imposing a network in the streaming process when playing my own stored music.

Re the V1’s USB and RF- the implementation is based on Audiphileos product (check out their site), has galvanic isolation, and does not use the 5V USB supply - pretty optimised to say the least. The V1 also uses a linear PSU.

Despite this, there are some on this forum that post improvements of what sort or another, with dedicated units such as a Melco, Aurender and the like, as well as various things to clean up the signal between a PC/MAC and the V1, and cables without the 5v wire in it.

FWIW, I am not motivated by experimenting as I am, let’s say- more than satisfied with the SQ of my system.

Innocent Bystander posted:

 

Actually, I don’t think you’ve stated what renderer you use? I’ve sort of assumed it is Audirvana, and set up fully optimised.

Yep - Audirvana +. Can’t remember about optimisation to be honest, though it does ring a bell - something about dedicating the audio circuits just to Audirvana or something like that (though I’m bound to have got that wrong).

I am interested in a dedicated Naim streamer rather than MM - perhaps the Qutest/used 282/SC will be a temporary solution until I get a NDX2 or used NDS when the new streamers are out (I.e. 282/SC would stay but I’d sell on the Qutest - or if I’m doing that I guess just stay with the V1 until I get the streamer and forget about the Qutest).

Hell - I’ll listen and decide ....

dave4jazz posted:

I know the audio reproduction quality of a Mac Mini can be improved in a number of ways but given the OP's existing equipment I believe there are other, better, front-end solutions available and well within his budget.

Some very innovative products have become available in the last couple of years or so and not too difficult to implement either but may require research or talk to Martin at the Audiostore.

Dave

Not sure if this ‘front end’ includes DAC or not (that being in the OP’s current plans), but with regard to renderer and store functions, there are certainly some interesting solutions that have been discussed on this forum, like the micro- and ultraRendu, with Raspberry Pi etc, and I for one have been following ‘the Hugo of streaming’ thread with interest - but they have seemed very ‘diy’ in terms of choice of power supplies and setup, though at last recently there seems to have been a bit more clarity.

If I had to replace my own source I’d certainly consider, however very few people seem to have made direct comparison with, in this specific case, a fully optimised Audirvana on Mac Mini with effective RF isolation (or into a DAC with effective RF isolation) - only one or possibly two IIRC, , though maybe a couple more with other Audirvana setups) - and I don’t recall any direct comparisons with the likes of Melco and Innuos Zenith, though the cost of some of the implementations must be getting into the same territory.

Innocent Bystander posted:

dave4jazz posted:

I know the audio reproduction quality of a Mac Mini can be improved in a number of ways but given the OP's existing equipment I believe there are other, better, front-end solutions available and well within his budget.

Some very innovative products have become available in the last couple of years or so and not too difficult to implement either but may require research or talk to Martin at the Audiostore.

Dave

Not sure if this ‘front end’ includes DAC or not (that being in the OP’s current plans), but .....

I wasn't including the DAC. Doesn't the OP already has a pretty good one?

Dave

dave4jazz posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

dave4jazz posted:

I know the audio reproduction quality of a Mac Mini can be improved in a number of ways but given the OP's existing equipment I believe there are other, better, front-end solutions available and well within his budget.

Some very innovative products have become available in the last couple of years or so and not too difficult to implement either but may require research or talk to Martin at the Audiostore.

Dave

Not sure if this ‘front end’ includes DAC or not (that being in the OP’s current plans), but .....

I wasn't including the DAC. Doesn't the OP already has a pretty good one?

Dave

Pretty good doesn’t mean it can’t be improved...  and in my experience with digital sources the DAC really is key to how it sounds. This is not knocking the V1, but there are other possibilities that may sound better (though of course only the OP can decide what sound best to him).

Regarding the ‘player’ or ‘transport’, however named, and assuming an asynchronous DAC, I believe that with ‘bit-perfect’ players, RF contamination of the digital music stream is the most significant factor in adversely affecting the sound, due to interactions in the DAC. Therefore, bearing in mind that all computers produce RF even with the best possible power supplies (and that will include that stage of even Naim streamers), its removal is a key requirement for accurate reproduction. Naim streamers must do that internally, and possibly one difference between models is that the better ones do it more effectively. Dedicated music players such as Melco and Innuos Zenith also do it, possibly some more effectively than others. And stand-alone DACs vary in their ability to block any RF in the signal fed to them - and the better the DAC is at rejecting it the less critical is removal in the computer, though that said, it could be that even with a DAC with the best possible RF rejection, a source that minimises the amount of RF in the first place might sound better than one that doesn’t due to intractions before tha DAC.

Hi ... I think if you like the Naim approach and you want to make the most of your NAP300 ........ really you do 2 things .... second hand 272/555ps and 252 or if funds stretch preferably an NDS.....or maybe possibly a Dave into a 282 would be good too. I don't recommend driving the 300 with the Dave ......... the results are not exciting.