Nac 72 revisited

It certainly is a great little pre and the interchangeable boards are a beautiful piece of engineering and a great user friendly idea. Hope you continue to enjoy MM.

MM, what's your opinion on pairing the Nac 72 with DR-ed equipment?

The 72 had some of the best (maybe the best) cost performance of all the preamps. 

72/HC/140 was just such a dinky little high end system that hardly took up any room. May shoebox seperates live forever!

I love the 72, owned three over the years and I think it's one of the best analogue pre amps Naim have built.

Adding the Hicap DR would be very interesting wonder what this brings in performance.

Mango Monkey,  great to hear you are enjoying your rebuilt 72 so much.  I too have a 72 that Chris West performed the same magic on and my experience with it is very similar to yours.

Coincidentally, I took delivery yesterday of a 140 from Chris yesterday after undergoing a full rebuild.  Now I have a 72/hicap/140 that he has fully rebuilt.  The rest of the system is CDX/XPS, Rega P6, and Allaes.  There aren't enough superlatives.  It's simply exceptional.  

Can the 72/hicap/140 combo be beaten when it's operating at this level?  Perhaps in some areas, but in terms of synergy and musicality I doubt it.  To top it off, the value for money is off the charts.

Interesting that Chris (probably the No.1 naim service technician this side of the Mason Dixon) swaps the BNC sockets out, for RCA, and regards it as an upgrade.

Perhaps the theory that BNC is superior is wrong.

fatcat posted:

Interesting that Chris (probably the No.1 naim service technician this side of the Mason Dixon) swaps the BNC sockets out, for RCA, and regards it as an upgrade.

Perhaps the theory that BNC is superior is wrong.

 

I asked him to do it. My Rega RP6 has rcas.  I don’t have the time to get bncs on it.

The RP6 into the Nac72 does sound better/smoother than the AlloDigiOne/NaimDac into the Nac72. The Nac72 was built in the era when Vinyl reigned supreme. ;-)

I suspect its the AlloDigiOne that causing the Naim Dac to sound a little 'hot'.

fatcat posted:

Interesting that Chris (probably the No.1 naim service technician this side of the Mason Dixon) swaps the BNC sockets out, for RCA, and regards it as an upgrade.

Perhaps the theory that BNC is superior is wrong.

 

I wouldn't necessarily draw that conclusion.  In my case he took out the BNC sockets and replaced them with WBT RCA jacks because I use a Rega turntable which of course has RCA terminations.  I am unlikely to ever get an LP12 so there was no point leaving the BNC sockets in place. 

I would also suggest that geographical boundaries are of little use in trying to understand the level of Chris's skills!

Maybe the 72 / HiCap DR is the hidden gem, so let's say £400 for a great used example of the 72 and £800 for a used HiCap DR so around £1200 for an exceptional Naim Pre amp, enough said.

Sounds like a great setup Mango 

Olive 250-72 here.CHANGED MY CB HC 3 YEARS AGO TO AN HC DR.GREAT UPGRADE.

How does the Olive 250 compare to the Nap250.DR ...?

Oh - and I forgot - I also happen to have the newer naim speaker cables.. superlumina..

MangoMonkey posted:

The RP6 into the Nac72 does sound better/smoother than the AlloDigiOne/NaimDac into the Nac72. The Nac72 was built in the era when Vinyl reigned supreme. ;-)

I suspect its the AlloDigiOne that causing the Naim Dac to sound a little 'hot'.

Thanks. I have an Allo Digione into a Chord Mojo, this does not sound hot, but smooth. I must say that I still want to get a Naim Dac when funds allow.

I now and then miss the guts which my Supernait 1 has.

MangoMonkey posted:

How does the Olive 250 compare to the Nap250.DR ...?

Oh - and I forgot - I also happen to have the newer naim speaker cables.. superlumina..

Before my 250dr I had a CB250 with olive fascia and Naim service completed in 2017.

The 250 DR pips it but only just, once listened to a 250.2 and this was not for me.

In my opinion the olive or CB250 (serviced) is closer to the 250dr then a 250.2.

ngarritson posted:

fatcat posted:

Interesting that Chris (probably the No.1 naim service technician this side of the Mason Dixon) swaps the BNC sockets out, for RCA, and regards it as an upgrade.

Perhaps the theory that BNC is superior is wrong.

 

I wouldn't necessarily draw that conclusion.  In my case he took out the BNC sockets and replaced them with WBT RCA jacks because I use a Rega turntable which of course has RCA terminations.  I am unlikely to ever get an LP12 so there was no point leaving the BNC sockets in place. 

I would also suggest that geographical boundaries are of little use in trying to understand the level of Chris's skills!

Well, if you take a look at his website, you will see a photo of the back panel of 62 with the title.

NAC 62 preamp, Olive era, upgraded with WBT Nextgen RCA jacks.

OK, he's probably naims best service technician both this and the other side of the Mason Dixon.

fatcat posted:

ngarritson posted:

fatcat posted:

Interesting that Chris (probably the No.1 naim service technician this side of the Mason Dixon) swaps the BNC sockets out, for RCA, and regards it as an upgrade.

Perhaps the theory that BNC is superior is wrong.

 

I wouldn't necessarily draw that conclusion.  In my case he took out the BNC sockets and replaced them with WBT RCA jacks because I use a Rega turntable which of course has RCA terminations.  I am unlikely to ever get an LP12 so there was no point leaving the BNC sockets in place. 

I would also suggest that geographical boundaries are of little use in trying to understand the level of Chris's skills!

Well, if you take a look at his website, you will see a photo of the back panel of 62 with the title.

NAC 62 preamp, Olive era, upgraded with WBT Nextgen RCA jacks.

OK, he's probably naims best service technician both this and the other side of the Mason Dixon.

Oh I see.  I couldn’t tell you if they are suggesting WBT RCAs are an upgrade over BNCs.  I know they certainly regard them as an upgrade over standard RCAs. 

A classic (and a classy) combo - I also drive mine with an nDAC, but use Quad ESL-63s

I just sold off my Nac272.

AlloDigiOne -> Naim Dac -> Nac 72/HiCapDR replaced the Nac272. 

MangoMonkey posted:

I just sold off my Nac272.

AlloDigiOne -> Naim Dac -> Nac 72/HiCapDR replaced the Nac272. 

 

This is interesting, I have been 'scared off' from buying a nac 72 to front up my nap 300 power amp.

I would be interested to know if a freshly serviced nac 72 be a reasonable 'good value' pre for the 300? 

A 300 is not the max for the 72. See this bloke on youtube:

'I just sold off my Nac272.

AlloDigiOne -> Naim Dac -> Nac 72/HiCapDR replaced the Nac272'

Mango Monkey, is the DigiOne also a streamer then? Or what app do you use to render from your PC to it? Thanks

The DigiOne is ONLY a streamer. It takes in an ethernet connection and outputs an extremely low jitter digital out. They don't do optical out since they can't get the jitter down on it. 

This supports both roon and upnp. I wanted Roon on this system - and it was cheaper to go down this route rather than a naim based solution.

(I had to budget for a ND555 in my main system).

I went from a 282 to a 72 in my system (which has eventually migrated from black to olive). It's a great preamp, and I thought there was very little between those two.

I'm now running it as 72/SC/135s (all serviced in the last 3 years at most) and I don't think I'd have any qualms fronting a 300 with it other than the somewhat silly look of the combo. :-P

I went from a 72 to a 282 and, to this day, it is the single greatest upgrade that I have ever made.

When I upgraded from a 282 to a 552, I sold off the 282, and used a Nac72 for a few months while the 552 was getting built for me. Funnily enough, I didn't miss the 282 much...