The Epic Continues...

NAC52

It started with the arrival of my 52 on Friday. As to those who say Naim gear sounds "bad" before it's broken in, I would like to say that they're full of it. I realize that it will improve over the coming days, but out of the box it sounded far better than my 82. My initial perceptions have been reaffirmed after 1, 2 and 3 days. It's improved a bit, but it was showing its colors immediately.

In a nutshell, the 52 sounds very sophisticated, controlled, capable, smooth, clear and communicative. In contrast, the 82/Super sounds youthful and exuberant, sometimes in a rather uncontrolled fashion. It can be loads of fun, but sometimes it can be too extreme in its presentation, and I suppose you could even miss it occasionally. (This is probably why some people prefer a 3.5/Hi to a CDX. That exuberance can be enjoyable, even those it's "wrong".)

Neuance Platform

At friend visited, and brought his Neuance platform. This board is sold as a replacement for the Mana glass shelf, and we tried it under my CDS2 head unit. Suffice it to say that I didn't like the effect. It did a wonderful job of smoothing the highs and making the overall presentation much fuller and warmer. Annoying aspects of the performance (like overly bright cymbals) were greatly improved. However, it seemed to lose some of its life energy, and didn't have quite the same snap and punch. Once the Mana glass was back in place, the system regained its lust for life.

Speaker Platforms

As soon as I moved into my room a few months ago, I realized that I had a problem with my speakers transferring bass energy into the floor. I solved most of it by placing the speaker stands on MDF platforms, each of which was supported by three cones. This didn't solve all of it, though.

A friend helped create a replacement for the cones. A small 12"-square metal frame is used to hold some Vuk-style foot-balls, which support the MDF slab. This gives us one more layer of isolation, and now very little bass gets into the floor. As a result, the low frequencies seem significantly tighter.

I can see how Mana Sound Bases really help speakers, and I may have to consider those in the future. For now, though, these home-made isolation platforms seem to be doing the trick. Once I get used to all of these recent changes, I'll probably yearn for more improvements.

BTW, I was pretty happy with the sound of my system in my old apartment (19x19 foot living room, in the shape of an "L"). When I first setup my system here at the house, I thought that there was too much bass in my room. However, as the days and weeks went by, I started to believe that the bass was preferable this way. Then I heard a few other "good" systems (like the CDS2/52/500/NBL system at Innovative Audio in NYC), and I realized that my bass response was just right. The key issue was stopping it from overhanging and booming in the floor. Now that that's been solved, I think the bass level is pretty darn close to perfect.

Dedicated Mains Line

I often listen to music played quite loud, but my system seemed to get somewhat "shouty" as I climbed the dial. After having a number of individuals comment that this might be a problem with the Albions, I resigned myself to the fact that they just couldn't play as loud as I wanted. I was all set to upgrade my speakers sometime in the next year or so.

However, the former Royd distributor here in Canada told me that it definitely was NOT a problem with Albions. He said that my system sounded bad because of problems upstream. He said the Albions were very detailed and good at showing any problems with the source, amps, etc., while lesser speakers would mask these issues.

He suggested that it might be the Naim amps causing it, and urged me to try Exposure. However, I knew that I had heard many Naim systems without this problem, so I wasn't ready to blame the amps. I also found that it improved each time I upgraded a component. However, even with CDS2/52/250/Mana, it was still quite "searing" at higher volumes. This seemed rather silly, considering the value of electronics.

Well it turns out that rather than the amps causing troubles, it was noisy mains. Before proceeding with the installation job, we tried plugging a contractor's large-gauge extension chord into a wall socket next to the breaker box. This was fed up to my stereo room, and my custom power bar was plugged directly into extension chord.

I could not believe the difference in clarity and the reduction in noise! As soon as I heard it, I realized that we had to install the dedicated line. Five hours and $135Cdn later (approximately $90US or £55), the job was done and the system was sounding amazing.

We had to run the line in a conduit outside the house, which meant drilling through the wall in two places. (The in-house path from the breaker box to the stereo room was fraught with many insurmountable obstacles.) We also had to rearrange the breaker box a little, so that the dedicated circuit wasn't on the same rail as the "noisy" equipment (like the furnace, air conditioner, water heater, etc.)

We used individual 12-gauge wires, rather than a single cable. This made it much easier to fish it through the conduit. One of the wires is a spare, in case I decide to add a second circuit later. (I had only one spare breaker in the box, but I may upgrade my service in the future.) I've got my power bar plugged into the single hospital-grade socket. The system is plugged into the bar in order of amps-to-source, starting with the end nearest to the cable entrance on the power bar.

The dedicated spur has pretty much solved the shouty problem, and now I can play it with wonderful clarity to almost deafening levels. If you haven't already done this yourself, and if it's at all possible, don't delay! It's obscenely cheap, and the improvement is astronomical!

In Conclusion

I am amazingly happy with my system right now. The PRaT seems spot on, and it has amazing resolution and tonality. The instruments sound very natural and "pungent". The soundstage is comfortably ensconced in my room, not too close and not too far.

I still intend to upgrade to 135s at some point, and to get a Mana rack for the rest of my gear, but I can't imagine it sounding any better than it does right now. I'm sporting a grin from ear to ear, and I don't expect it to disappear any time soon.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-