Criticism on older 52s

Posted by: Carl Leermakers on 25 January 2004

Can any of you Experienced Experts enlighten a relative newbie on a 52 issue:

- how do the early 'supercapped' 52s (i.e. 1995 models such as the 107xxx I'm looking at) fare?

- did the burndies become black at the same time 52/52PS became 52/SCap or is that another mod?

- is a 1994 52 (getting its power from 52PS) identical to a model from say a year later, after the introdocution of the Supercap? (i.e. can I power a 1994 52 from a supercap?)

NB: recent thread on the quality of early 52's:
http://forums.naim-audio.com/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=67019385&f=48019385&m=6971979486&r=4931980586#4931980586
Posted on: 25 January 2004 by Hannes
quote:
Originally posted by Carl Leermakers:
[...]
- how do the early 'supercapped' 52s (i.e. 1995 models such as the 107xxx I'm looking at) fare?

- did the burndies become black at the same time 52/52PS became 52/SCap or is that another mod?

- is a 1994 52 (getting its power from 52PS) identical to a model from say a year later, after the introdocution of the Supercap? (i.e. can I power a 1994 52 from a supercap?)
[...]


Carl,
I made an upgrade from a 1994 82/sc to a 1995 52/sc and it was a real evident improvement, a league
above the 82 (even more than going from 82/hi to 82/sc).
Don't know, the difference between older and newer 52 preamps, probably the newer 52 are better but
my older 52 from 1995 is good enough to be significant better than every 82, I think!

And as far as I know you could power a 1994 52 with a supercap.

Regards
HANNES
Posted on: 25 January 2004 by Wolf
My dealer warned me about older 52's, seems over the years they had gone thru a lot of changes and said the most recent were the best, an older one would need to go to the factory for upgrades. It's your call.

Life is analogue
Posted on: 26 January 2004 by Top Cat
Heh heh, yeah, the advice I got was to "buy as recent a 52 as I could find" - and I lucked out, buying NeilW's May 2002 52/SC (albeit I paid a small premium for buying such a new 52/SC). No complaints whatsoever. Really!

John
Posted on: 26 January 2004 by graphoman
lucky you, may I ask you what the price was to pay for the S/H 2002 52/Scap?

graphoman
Posted on: 26 January 2004 by Top Cat
Top dollar, but worth it. I paid £4k, the asking price. Sure, I could have waited and saved £500 or even £1k by buying an older 52/SC, but this one still has some warranty left and is completely mint. And it's *my precioussssss* Big Grin

John
Posted on: 26 January 2004 by graphoman
should you have a similar tip but without Scap for me please let me know it. (There is absolutely no Naim representative in Hungary.)

graphoman