NDS with and without transport screws.....

I remember visiting a dealer in France at the behest of the distributor.  The problem was that the dealer had a NAC552 on loan from them and had been demoing it to their best prospective customers.  The results had been somewhat equivocal; very clear and revealing but a little fatiguing and just not quite "there". Neither the dealer nor any of the customers had felt it had lived up to expectations, so I had been asked to come and listen for myself.  I walked in to the demo room.  First problem was that it was powered off.  Second problem that i saw immediately was that the transit bolts were still taped in place...

I have (possibly) been just as guilty though.  Back in the old days and I was a relative newbie at Naim and we had the CDS3 prototype at Heathrow.  We had been setting up the room and moving stuff in and out of the system and it was getting late.  We decided to finish up and get something to eat, then come back afterwards for fine tuning.  During that time, someone had forgotten to remove the last of the transit bolts from under the CDS3, and so it remained until the first day of the show and things just weren't sounding quite right.  Luckily an eagle eyed Naimie spotted a lone transit bolt still in place.  Red faces all round, but I'm still haunted by the possibility that it may well have been my fault.  After that, I have always ensured that it's something that would never ever happen again on my watch.

I have mentioned before for a chuckle. When I added the Nap 300 to my Nova I spent a lot of time fiddling with the burndies and then sat back to bask in the new improved performance. Boy was it better, after a few tracks I had a lightbulb moment......I had forgot to change the speaker cables from Nova to Nap 300, was still listening to the Nova. A little embarrassing.

After the introduction of the CD5i, I bought a new old stock CD5 from a Naim dealer at a good price. It came with a manual for a CD5i which said remove the transit bolt. This I duly did. Sounded great.

A year or two down the line and not so great. I took it back to Naim as you could in those days. I looked on the docket as I unboxed the repaired player a week later. It said, 'Cracked board replaced and both transit bolts installed'. I removed both bolts. Sounded better than ever.

Ah ;-)

Hope to pick my (obviously) used NDS next week from the dealer...note to self ...remove transit bolts !!!!

Gazza posted:

I have mentioned before for a chuckle. When I added the Nap 300 to my Nova I spent a lot of time fiddling with the burndies and then sat back to bask in the new improved performance. Boy was it better, after a few tracks I had a lightbulb moment......I had forgot to change the speaker cables from Nova to Nap 300, was still listening to the Nova. A little embarrassing.

I like that one ;-)

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

My NDS came back last month from service/repair plus the 555PS has been DR'd. It has been away for 3 months.

It sounded fantastic. Detailed, punchy, organic and engaging; a great upgrade.

Yesterday I noticed I'd left the transport screws in place. Removing them it sounds even better

Just goes to show, 25+yrs of owning Naim, but I can still be an idiot. It would please me enormously if somebody else looked underneath their NDS and discovered they have been listening to theirs with the screws still in place too!

Please share your HiFi acts of stupidity.

Bruce

As somebody who's thinking of buying a used NDS what actually goes wrong with one to require a service/ repair?

And at what age ? Is it just the displays ?

Rattlesnaic posted:

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

My NDS came back last month from service/repair plus the 555PS has been DR'd. It has been away for 3 months.

It sounded fantastic. Detailed, punchy, organic and engaging; a great upgrade.

Yesterday I noticed I'd left the transport screws in place. Removing them it sounds even better

Just goes to show, 25+yrs of owning Naim, but I can still be an idiot. It would please me enormously if somebody else looked underneath their NDS and discovered they have been listening to theirs with the screws still in place too!

Please share your HiFi acts of stupidity.

Bruce

As somebody who's thinking of buying a used NDS what actually goes wrong with one to require a service/ repair?

And at what age ? Is it just the displays ?

This interests me too, is it worth starting a new thread?

Guilty here too, twice;

One occasion, after moving my old CDS3, it was several months before I looked closely at it, to try to improve the "off sound" and yes, I discovered some transit bolts still in place..

More recently, after moving house, I discovered I'd left the bass driver transit bolts in my NBL's some months later.
I thought the bass seemed overly reserved!

ROOG posted:

Rattlesnaic posted:

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

My NDS came back last month from service/repair plus the 555PS has been DR'd. It has been away for 3 months.

It sounded fantastic. Detailed, punchy, organic and engaging; a great upgrade.

Yesterday I noticed I'd left the transport screws in place. Removing them it sounds even better

Just goes to show, 25+yrs of owning Naim, but I can still be an idiot. It would please me enormously if somebody else looked underneath their NDS and discovered they have been listening to theirs with the screws still in place too!

Please share your HiFi acts of stupidity.

Bruce

As somebody who's thinking of buying a used NDS what actually goes wrong with one to require a service/ repair?

And at what age ? Is it just the displays ?

This interests me too, is it worth starting a new thread?

Mine just went mute on one channel. I had been connecting and re-connecting the PS whilst shuffling some other components around, we had also had a bit of lightning around but I was pretty sure it had been off at the time. I sent it back but when it returned 'repaired' it was still faulty. It went back again, this time with the PS in case it was implicated and they found that a simple component in the NDS was at fault and fixed it FoC. I then waited for the 555 upgrade.

In the end I'm not sure what was amiss but it is the first issue I have ever had with any Naim component-and some of those I have owned have been s/h and pretty old.

Has not dented my confidence or satisfaction; stuff happens.

Bruce

Conclusion of this thread seems to be that Naim should paint the transit bolts bright orange!

Bruce

There are different coloured transit bolts. Those for my NDS are black, whereas those for my NAC552 are cream coloured. 

So which products come with transit bolts. I have NAP 300, PS555 and NAC 272 and never removed any transit bolts so I assume not on these boxes

Only those with suspended bits, so the CDI, CDS, CDS 2 and 3, the NDS, ND555 and the 552. Other CD players also have them, to stop the doors swinging open. 

Think the superline can be added to the list??

Not with Naim but I bought a Philips CD player Christmas 1990 for my brother in Richer Sounds. 

Proudly showing it to him on Christmas Day and the mechanism opened the door but closed it immediately. If one was quick you could get a CD in. Disgusted brought it back to RS on St Stephen’s Day (Boxing Day to most of you) and of course offending transit screw was removed!

good training for Naim. 

.sjb

Snaxo BMR has transit bolts as well.

Clive B posted:

There are different coloured transit bolts. Those for my NDS are black, whereas those for my NAC552 are cream coloured. 

It was decided after extensive listening that cream coloured bolts sound better when left in on the 552.

The only thing I ever bought that had transit bolts was a washing machine, and I can tell you that it definitely sounds a LOT better after you remove them ????

Nice one????

Japtimscarlet posted:

Think the superline can be added to the list??

Yes that is correct as I have recently sent mine to Naim for a service, after 10 years, with the transit bolts in place.

How the time has flown by and how much great music the Superline has delivered!

Richard

I too have an embarrassing transit bolt confession - and it’s very recent - well, the discovery though not the omission. I recently acquired a CD555, as mentioned on another thread. As a result I packed up the CDS3 but was puzzled by a missing transit bolt. Need I say more? I moved house two and a half years ago so the CDS3 had one bolt installed for all that time. No wonder it failed to match the CD555!